Sponsor's Message

If you, I, or anyone else, spends time and effort to create a unique "work" then we have a right to protect that work from plagiarism or unauthorised duplication -- especially for commercial purposes.

After all, why should anyone be free to profit from the hard work that someone else has done.

When a musician, writer, author, movie-maker or other creative worker produces such a work, copyright law provides a goodly measure of protection against others effectively stealing some of the benefits of that effort and investment.

On the other hand however, there are some things that can't (and shouldn't) be protected by copyright.

I'm talking about things such as facts.

One of the reasons that 7am.com was able to thrive with such a small amount of resources was that the news consists mainly of facts and therefore anyone is free to report those facts, using their own creativity to craft suitable original prose.

When an aeroplane crashes, *anyone* can write a news story based on the facts -- even though they may have gotten those facts from another news publisher such as CNN, the BBC or whoever.

Readers Say Got something to say about today's column, or want to see what others think?  Visit The Forums

Similarly, if I want to publish an encyclopedia, there's absolutely nothing to stop me extracting the facts from some other reference work -- so long as I don't copy that text verbatim.

The chemical symbol for iron is Fe, and that's a fact. Just because this fact appears in the copyrighted Encyclopedia Britannica doesn't mean I can't also publish the same fact in Encyclopedia Simpson. Nobody can copyright facts -- only the way they are presented.

It was with great dismay therefore that I read the claims made on this page.

Since I'm preparing to roll out my own set of XML-based TV listings I found this claim to be very interesting.

The way I see it (and I'm sure some whiz-bang copyright lawyer will correct me if I'm wrong), the fact that "Everyone Loves Raymond" is scheduled to screen on TV3 tonight at 8pm is a fact -- and therefore not able to be copyrighted at all.

Sure, I can't just cut and paste the HTML or text from this page onto my own website -- but I must surely be free to report the *fact* that this program is regularly scheduled to screen at this time on this day without some claim of copyright infringement by TV3 -- or a demand for $2,000 a month.

And what do TV broadcasters have to gain by trying to restrict the availability of their programming schedules in this way?

How many other publishers pay $2K a month for this info? Maybe less than a dozen, producing a revenue of perhaps $20K or so a month.

And here's me stupidly thinking that the goal of free-to-air TV broadcasting was to attract as many viewers as possible. If that were the case, then surely making your listings freely available to any and all would be a valuable way to market your content.

So, be very careful if a friend rings up and asks "what time is CSI on?"

If you answer him then TV3 will likely consider that you've infringed their copyright.

Yes, the biggest problem with copyright law these days is the way it is abused -- not by pirates but by those whose interests it was created to protect.

If you feel that this is a good thing and/or you hold a "geniune affection" for yours truly -- then you are welcome to gift me some money using the buttons provided. In gifting this money you accept that no goods, service or other consideration is offered, provided, accepted or anticipated in return. Just click on the button to gift whatever you can afford. NOTE: PayPal bills in US dollars so don't accidentally gift more than what you were intending :-)

Contacting Aardvark
I'm always happy to hear from readers, whether they're delivering brickbats, bouquets or news tip-offs. If you'd like to contact me directly, please this form. If you're happy for me to republish your comments then please be sure and select For Publication.

Other media organisations seeking more information or republication rights are also invited to contact me.

Just add a couple of lines of JavaScript to your pages and you can get a free summary of Aardvark's daily commentary -- automatically updated each and every week-day.

Aardvark also makes a summary of this daily column available via XML using the RSS format. More details can be found here.

Contact me if you decide to use either of these feeds and have any problems.

Linking Policy
Want to link to this site? Check out Aardvark's Linking Policy.

Did you tell someone else about Aardvark today? If not then do it now!