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Should freedb's Data Be Public Domain?
Horar asks: "There's been a lot of recent fuss over freedb. My position is that freedb was just not free enough, and I would like to find a way to bring all the data into the public domain, just as MusicBrainz has done with much of their data. I had not thought that this would be possible until I received advice from various parties suggesting that it was. So now I ask Slashdot if this is true? Can the freedb data legally be brought into the public domain at this time, and if so how? Most importantly, would it be 'The Right Thing To Do'?"
Here's the wikipedia link..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedb
Note: I am most certainly not a lawyer.
freedb.org claims the data is licensed under the GPL; therefore, you should have the right to distribute it as you see fit, provided you comply with the GPL.
As far as whether you can free it from the GPL, I believe the answer is no. While the data is arguably merely facts, and therefore not protected by copyright law, I think there was a copyright amendment recently that made a particular compilation of data subject to copyright. I don't know whether it passed or not.
Here's the Slashdot article on the subject. Unfortunately, TFA it links to is gone.
If you "place" it into the Public Domain, no one may control it. This means a proprietary program may use it and extended it, and restrict it use like cddb.com !!! See wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain
Never trust a man wearing a coat and tie!
It's the free CD information DB, like CDDB... http://freedb.org/
Uh, yeah. I know that. Where do you think CDDB got all their information before they started selling it? From suckers like you and me who typed in all the CD information. Then, one day, all of a sudden CDDB decided to put all these restrictions on who could access "their" database. "Oh yeah. You built this database for us. Thanks. Now if you want to actually use it, well..."
Hence, freedb sprung up as an attempt to start all over and do it right. Now apparently there's a question of whether the FreeDB database is public domain.
Insane.
They supply copies of their databases via BitTorrent - http://tracker.freedb.org/
(which arguably is more valuable than the server side software).
Merriam-Webster is adding the verb "to google" to their dictionary in the next release.
0 06/07/03/daily36.html
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2
First, it looks like the database files are already GPL'd. I'm not sure what you would want to do with the data that isn't allowed by the GPL.
Second, if you want to do something with the database that isn't allowed by the GPL (however the GPL applies to databases), you might want to ask your lawyer whether the freedb database files contain any copyrightable expression, given that the titles themselves are not copyrightable and much of their arrangement may be functional. I haven't looked closely at the files, but it would be worth investigating if for some reason you really wanted to make a derivative work of the database files without GPLing the result.
IAAL, but this is definitely not legal advice.
Since Slashdot users aren't lawyers, here are some selected sections from Feist, the most prominent on-topic case on this issue, decided by the Supreme Court holding that telephone book was not copyrightable. The CDDB and FreeDB databases are very similar to the telephone books in Feist: a compilation of facts, no selection criteria (anything they get, they put in, it's not a database of someone's subjective evaluation of the best CDs), no originality in arrangement.
The more interesting issue is to what extent contracts can modify the background rules of copyright and allow someone to exert copyright-like control over non-copyrightable works. See ProCD. Since the GPL purports to be a license, rather than a contract, it is only enforceable if the underlying work is copyrightable.
FEIST PUBLICATIONS, INC. v. RURAL TELEPHONE SERVICE CO., 499 U.S. 340 (1991)
[11] Originality is a constitutional requirement. The source of Congress' power to enact copyright laws is Article I, 8, cl. 8, of the Constitution, which authorizes Congress to "secure for limited Times to Authors . . . the exclusive Right to their respective Writings." In two decisions from the late 19th Century -- The Trade-Mark Cases, 100 U.S. 82 (1879); and Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony, 111 U.S. 53 (1884) -- this Court defined the crucial terms "authors" and "writings." In so doing, the Court made it unmistakably clear that these terms presuppose a degree of originality.
[16]Factual compilations, on the other hand, may possess the requisite originality. The compilation author typically chooses which facts to include, in what order to place them, and how to arrange the collected data so that they may be used effectively by readers. These choices as to selection and arrangement, so long as they are made independently by the compiler and entail a minimal degree of creativity, are sufficiently original that Congress may protect such compilations through the copyright laws. Nimmer 2.11[D], 3.03; Denicola 523, n. 38. Thus, even a directory that contains absolutely no protectible written expression, only facts, meets the constitutional minimum for copyright protection if it features an original selection or arrangement.
[17] This protection is subject to an important limitation. The mere fact that a work is copyrighted does not mean that every element of the work may be protected. Originality remains the sine qua non of copyright; accordingly, copyright protection may extend only to those components of a work that are original to the author. Patterson & Joyce 800-802; Ginsburg, Creation and Commercial Value: Copyright Protection of Works of Information, 90 Colum. L. Rev. 1865, 1868, and n. 12 (1990) (hereinafter Ginsburg). Thus, if the compilation author clothes facts with an original collocation of words, he or she may be able to claim a copyright in this written expression. Others may copy the underlying facts from the publication, but not the precise words used to present them. In Harper & Row, for example, we explained that President Ford could not prevent others from copying bare historical facts from his autobiography, see 471 U.S., at 556-557, but that he could prevent others from copying his "subjective descriptions and portraits of public figures." [p*349] Id., at 563. Where the compilation author adds no written expression but rather lets the facts speak for themselves, the expressive element is more elusive. The only conceivable expression is the manner in which the compiler has selected and arranged the facts. Thus, if the selection and arrangement are original, these elements of the work are eligible for copyright protection. See Patry, Copyright in Compilations of Facts (or Why the "White Pages" Are Not Copyrightable), 12 Com. & Law 37, 64 (Dec. 1990) (hereinafter Patry). No matter how original the format, however, the facts themselves do not become original through association. See Patterson & Joyce 776.
[18] This inevitably means that the copyri
I'm certain, in the US, at least, there was a case that set a precedent on this sort of data collection. Not long after the man who made the first telephone directory did so (yes he had to call *everyone* to get it), a second lazier man made his own, copying the numbers from the first directory. The first man accused the second of this, taking his ass to court on copyright infringement. The verdict: The court ruled you couldn't own the truth, the information had always existed. The first man had collected it, but he hadn't *created* it, so he couldn't enforce copyright. Copyright applies to works of art, not to facts. . The source of information was irrelevant, if you ignore typesetting etc..
No-one does own the data on freedb. Sure it's now avaliable through many sources, freedb, cddb, Wikipedia, but most importantly it's on the CD. When a CD is released, that data is made public. It doesn't hold significance, it's for reference. freedb don't own it, nor do the record companies. 'Public domain' doesn't even apply, it's not a work of art under threat of imitation. just another catalogue of factual data, like a reference of the colours of common objects. And the truth is everyone's.
Well, I have no idea what stupid things foreign copyright laws do, but FYI in the United States, copyright does not involve novelty. It is entirely possible to have two identical, independently created works, where both are copyrighted and neither infringes upon the other.
Of course the Constitution also prohibits copyrighting facts or uncreative compilations of facts, and couldn't give less a of a crap about mere effort. We're not interested in protecting effort. We're interested in promoting the progress of science by encouraging creativity. Our limited, often lack, of protection for databases is entirely deliberate.
And note that the database industry is pretty big in the US, so apparently we're doing the right thing by not subsidizing them.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
If someone goes to the work of building a compilation of materials that is expensive to build and maintain, their efforts should be protected.
The courts disagree. This was tested in the case of telephone directories. Ma Bell claimed that it was illegal for someone to copy the contents of the phone book and publish their own version. The courts ruled that collections of facts, with no creative element, are not subject to copyright law. Copyright protects creative expressions, not sweat.
That's not to say that databases can't be protected through other legal mechanisms, but the "free ride" that society grants copyright holders does not apply to databases. Instead, if you want to protect your database, you have to make it a trade secret (which requires taking great care to protect it yourself) and/or protect it contractually.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
The original question was put to slashdot a couple of weeks ago and in the interests of openness I mentioned the website in my submission. The slashdot editors quite wisely held the article for two weeks and have now posted it with all references to my controversial domain removed. Now thanks to you, I just got more advertising on slashdot.
For what it's worth I'm maintaining a news page on the site which shall not be named, and if you have a genuine interest in what is going on, please read that or contact me directly.
The problem is that according to opinions I've been given, the GPL never could be applied to the particular case of the freedb data owing to the nature of it. That would mean that people have been submitting data for six years in the mistaken belief that their efforts were being protected from the big bad corporations somehow. If freedb.org has been a big fat lie all this time, wouldn't it be nice to clear that up?
BTW Don't confuse the freedb data with the freedb server software. They are different animals and there is no doubt that the server software is protected by the GPL. As for freedb2, I've been writing that myself from scratch since December 2004 and it has nothing to do with the original GPL'd freedb server software, and never did. I'll be releasing the rest of it under the new BSD licence when it is ready. The most important bits were already released quite a while ago.
I don't know where you're checking, but you're very wrong. CDDB (and it's data), when it was started, was GNU GPL. This was back in the mid-90s. I know, because I was there inputting data into the CDDB database and getting lots of good information about other CDs in my collection from the fledgling CDDB database.
When FreeDB forked, they took the last freely available GPL codebase and dataset, and went off to continue what Ti Kan started. I'm not sure where you get the idea that data use can't be governed under the GPL, or that owning the copyright to something can be used to revoke a previous license to something that you've already given. Since Ti Kan owned the copyright to the CDDB, he's free to change it and profit off of it, but what's he's already put out there as GPL is, and shall always remain, free software. FreeDB hasn't done anything wrong.