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'?"

Comments

Why ask slashdot?

[Umbral Blot]

Good Idea: asking a lawyer for legal advice
Bad Idea: asking /. for legal advice

Re:Why ask slashdot?

[MBCook]

Good Idea: Having breakfast served to you in bed.
Bad Idea: Having tennis balls served to you in bed.

Sorry, I had to. I don't get to use that reference much.

Re:Why ask slashdot?

[techno-vampire]

Good idea: Asking Slashdot for advice. Bad Idea: Following that advice.

What freedb is..

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the wikipedia link..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedb

My position...

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIW, my position is that I felt really F'd over, years ago when CDDB decided to start selling the info I had helped them collect. I thought the whole idea of FreeDB was to correct the mistakes of the past so that this could never be done again.

So yeah, I think this data should be public domain, and I'm not entirely convinced that databases-- collections of facts-- should be able to be protected as intellectual property at all.

Re:My position...

[Anonymous Coward]

In your point of view, all the credit card and bank databases should be public domain too? For this information, I think maybe it could be public domain, but regardless of what happens I think the RIAA will sue in the near future. They can sue people for anything.

A couple of key differences:

1. I never said that all databases should be public domain. I said that I wasn't convinced they should be considered intellectual property, a term used to describe artistic works and forms of expression. That's what copyright was meant to protect.

2. I am not against the protection of proprietary information in general, such as medical records, bank databases, or the recipe for coke. If anything, the owner if this information should be YOU, the patient, bank customer, or coca cola company. Aggrigators or maintainers of databases, should have an interest in keeping this information private to protect your interest, when it makes sense to do so. But really, I don't see anyone as "owning" the fact that you have such-and-such a credit card number, or the fact that you once had an AIDS test. You may seek or expect to have this information considered private or protected in some manner by whomever maintains it in accordance with a privacy polciy, but this is different from claiming "ownership" of collections of unfiltered, uninterpreted facts.

3. This is the same kind of intellectual property insanity that leads to companies "patenting" parts of the human genome.

Sooner or later, all this arbitrary classification of information is going to get a major reality check.

Re:My position...

[NixLuver]

"So if I spent 3 billion dollars and mapped out every cubic meter of NYC in 3-D, to within a few meters accuracy, and used that in the next Grand Theft Auto game, you are saying you should be able to just copy that data wholesale and use it in Flight Simulator 2007?"

Mmmm.... What commitment have you made to the original architects of the buildings that you've mapped out in NY? To the workers that built the streets? Are you paying them royalties or license fees? Do they 'own' their 'design'? Will your hypothetical "GTA-The Big Apple" make less money if our friend does use the same database in Flight Simulator? The point many are missing here is that databases are not creative acts, ie, not what IP was designed to protect; they are in fact labor intensive, even tedious. A 'database' is most saliently protected as a 'trade secret' or some such nonsense, but in the end I'm not sure it matters; as I said, does your game make less money if another game uses the same database describing New York?

Re:My position...

[bm_luethke]

It's hard to tell exactly where people stand on this based on what has been written, but I think I tend to be somewhere in between the two stances argued so far. It's possible both of the arguments are really just restating the samething in different ways or totally disagree with what I'm about to write.

If I spend 3 billion dollars to map NYC to within a meter for a game I expect my data set to be legally protected. Really, that should be a no brainer. I'm not liscensing they layout - just liscensing the amount of work/money I have done. If you choose to donate time to *my* project that is your choice.

OTOH I don't own the layout of NYC - there is nothing to protect (nor should there be) someone else from doing the same thing. Even if it turns out to be 100% exactly what I have - as long as you came up with it one your own. I can't see how someone would think they can own that type of data.

To use the currect DB example - you shouldn't be able to own the knowledge that Band A wrote song B and it matches some hash of a given CD. That's like owning the layout to New York. However, if some company gathered all the information into a place then *that particular* database should not be copied. That is - having FreeDB simply run a script to query CDDB should be able to be made illegal, some one querying freedb to make thier own should be able to be illegal. If you don't like thier rules (and they fall within legal limits - obviously requiring ownership of your first born to access the DB shouldn't be legal). If you want one with a different liscense collect the data yourself.

But then, that's not really the scope of the original article - they seem to accept that CDDB liscense is legal. At issue is that a group that professes "free" isn't what some contributors call "Free". I don't really have a dog in the fight, I've never cared one way or another - but hey, this is slashdot and I still have an opinion. Before I submit to anything I generally make sure I accept thier liscense - I don't find it entirely honest to submit then complain that it isn't what you want and try and force change. I tend to agree with the original article - it should be free-er especially given how they collect thier data. However that affects my desire to contribute, not complaining after the fact.

Meh, I don't really see the point to much of the arguments. Databases should be legally protected (copyright or whatever is needed). The individual facts should not be legally protected (unless there is an overriding need of privacy such as facts like SSN's or credit card numbers). Read licenses before submitting work, if you don't like them don't submit work. If you really dislike them - start your own project. It seems pretty simple - someone violated any of the rules and you owned it you would be ticked (and I mean "you" as the current reader) - no reason to think that you should be able to violate it when it's against someone else.

Re:My position...

[tuxlove]

And CDDB ripped off the users how? Last I checked, both the data and source code they released to the public are what freedb was started with. When CDDB and freedb branched, they started with largely the same thing each other had. And who's got the better service? All of this really sounds like sour grapes by people who threw in their lot with the side who could only copy and not actually innovate;they're angry because freedb never went anywhere.

Nobody here seems to have a clue about copyright law, or about the actual state of freedb data. First, the original CDDB data was never released under the GPL. Why not? Perhaps because you can't GPL data, only source code. But nobody here is actually a lawyer, so that little fact never seems to see the light of day here. Second, read those little CDDB data files, the ones that first came from CDDB itself. They all say "Copyright Ti Kan". That's right, a legal copyright notice that the data is owned by an actual individual. By law, that simple statement is enough for Ti Kan himself to claim ownership of the data. But copyright law does not protect collections of data (like the phone book), so it's questionable if the data is really protected or not.

By releasing the data under a different copyright (as they have already done, frankly), freedb would essentially be saying, "We're going to steal this data from Ti Kan. But we think we're justified because we're free and open and FU to anyone who wants to keep data from being free. Even if we don't own it. Besides, copyright law is in our favor, so never mind if it's hippocritical or unjustified for us to make this data our own. We don't care, and nobody can stop us." But because the law is somewhat murky, and because the provenance of the current dataset is unclear, the data is essentially public domain already. But those who are pushing to make it officially public domain are just as "greedy" as those thieves they accuse of taking the data from the users. If you stole it from others, I can steal it from you! Then I'd be stealing from you, not them.

Re:My position...

[cpt kangarooski]

If someone goes to the work of building a compilation of materials that is expensive to build and maintain, their efforts should be protected.

Why?

The law shouldn't protect freeloaders like this.

Why not? And just so you know, these are honest questions.

It is not difficult to demonstrate originality in creation when enormous amounts of energy are expended in the process of doing so.

Oh? Well, I seem to recall that the Supreme Court said this, about this very subject:

It may seem unfair that much of the fruit of the compiler's labor may be used by others without compensation. As Justice Brennan has correctly observed, however, this is not "some unforeseen byproduct of a statutory scheme." It is, rather, "the essence of copyright," and a constitutional requirement. The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." To this end, copyright assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work. This principle, known as the idea-expression or fact-expression dichotomy, applies to all works of authorship. As applied to a factual compilation, assuming the absence of original written expression, only the compiler's selection and arrangement may be protected; the raw facts may be copied at will. This result is neither unfair nor unfortunate. It is the means by which copyright advances the progress of science and art.

Re:My position...

[cpt kangarooski]

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.

Re:My position...

[swillden]

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.

Legal has nothing to do with it

[BVis]

The RIAA will soon assert that the information is their IP and therefore using FreeDB will give them all the information they need to sue you.

And in this country you can sue anyone for anything, provided you can pay for your lawyers' fees. In the RIAA's case, they're betting (usually correctly, by making sure they sue people who can't afford to defend themselves) that you can't, and therefore will have to do whatever they demand.

Data is GPL

[Baricom]

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.

Re:Data is GPL

[Raul654]

"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 am not a lawyer either, but I think I can help you out. Copyright law protection compilations where subjective taste is used to distinguish what gets included from what does not. I believe this was the distinction the Surpreme court used in Feist V Rural to determine that anthologies (the "The best of Edgar Allan Poe", for example) are protected by copyright, whereas complications of data that have no subjective criteria for inclusion (the phone book, in that particular case) are not subject to protection. In this case, I suspect they will take any CD's data; meaning that there is no subjective critera for inclusion, meaning that no copyright can be applied.

Warning about Public Domain

[jimwelch]

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

Re:data

[YrWrstNtmr]

Yeah. There was a guy who used to hang out on rec.aviation.military that wrote just like you. We couldn't understand him either.

FreeDB already has their data online...

[tlhIngan]

They supply copies of their databases via BitTorrent - http://tracker.freedb.org/

(which arguably is more valuable than the server side software).

Already Is?

[dreamword]

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.

Who really wants the data?

[Matt Perry]

Considering the poor state of many of the Freedb entries, is that data really useful? I've been volunteering with the MusicBrainz project since October and I've found the data at Freedb to be a complete mess. MusicBrainz users can use Freedb to import albums so that we don't have to re-enter things into MusicBrainz by hand, but with so many duplicate and poorly edited entries (typos, etc) I'm wondering if it's worth it to even keep the data.

MusicBrainz is a better designed system. It's not limited to the archaic interface and design of the old CDDB system. It has interfaces that programmers can use to retrieve the same kind of data that they get from Freedb. The site also has a system in place for editing of entries and peer review of changes. I think it's a better solution, although I'm biased because of my involvement and interest with the project.

Selected Sections from FEIST

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Submitter let freedb die!

[ballermann]

Please note that Horar (the submitter) is the one who effectivly let freedb.org die. He worked with them for two years but didn't release any useful code. Now he is activly promoting his own project freedb2.org, promising to release the source but it is still not available.

I wonder why he should care about the data not being public domain, if his software is to be supposed GPL licensed? Unless well... think for your self.

I can't belive he just got more advertising on slashdot.

Re:Submitter let freedb die!

[ballermann]

..promising to release the source but it is still not available.

Some of his code is already available and the rest he is working on. I personally know Horar to be a firm beliver in OSS but he needs some time to organise and document the code. Have a little patience.

As far as I understand it he promised to show up the code for the last two years. Look: there a very simple thing he can do to make me and everyone else shut up: releasing the code. All of it. Not just tiny bits of character conversion scripts. The code for his currently working freedb compatible server. It doesn't matter if it is messy or uncommented. He just needs to tar it all up, put it under an open source licence and put it on his webspace. If he really wants to open his code he just needs to do this and his creditability is restored. Or he can just say "sorry I was bullshitting you and I'm going to build my own propritary nonfreedb".

Re:Submitter let freedb die!

[Horar]

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.

Need to sue Horar if he continues

[Anonymous Coward]

You are totally right. He's clearly managed to destroy cooperation within FreeDB, set the contributors against each other, and now it looks like he's planning to rip off the whole contribution. Something has to be done to stop it. I've contributed to FreeDB; My entries involved careful choice and selection of how to lay out and present the titles. I believe that they are copyright protectable and they were put in purely on the GPL License.

Further, I believe that the heavy level of mistakes and different representations of the same data in the FreeDB database actually helps us in this case. It's clearly an original work and not just a factual representation.

I'd like to get a group of people in a similar situation together to put up a class action suit against Horar. The primary aim will be to restrain him from further license infringement, but I'll put any money recovered from damages awarded towards

We'd need
* some money
* a lawyer
* a good place to organise.

To begin with, we'd try to get him to settle out of court; something like
* ceases to work on FreeDB2 or any related projects
* pays some compensation to the FreeDB project people

But we would have to be willing to go the whole way. Who would be up for joining? Can anyone set up a site for this. It would be a good chance to test the limits of copyright and also to set an example of GPL enforcement.

profit by freedb

[freqmod]

1. Get an agreement to write code for freedb
2. Don't release the source code
3. Let the admins of freedb quit
4. Make the freedb contents public domain
5. Incoperate the public domain code in a new (closed) solution
6. ?????
7. Profit!

My point of view as a former server maintainer

[Cyborg00_]

Hi, I was running a freedb mirror for a few years, and had lots of contacts with the team during that period. The demise of freedb was not a pleasant surprise for me. I also must admit that it was the first time that the nickname Kaiser has shown up anywhere for me. I also submitted over 1000 entries over the last few years, mainly for local artists.

I am a bit surprised of the discussion I see here. I fail to see the added-value to anyone of putting the database in the free domain. In my opinion, the only ones who would gain from this are the commercial services like Gracenote (remember that their data used to be free as well), who could integrate it in their engine without giving anything back. I also have the feeling that it will spur a serie of clones, some free, some not, which will grow their own database, probably without sharing that with the others (and with a big fat EULA).

The principal strenghts of freedb are the size of it's database, and it's licence. I do think that a large part of the reason why it got as big, is because of it's licence. Also the commitment that the GPL gives, that is to make sure that any modification stays under the GPL, is great for a database, as it ensures that any update stays open.

For those reasons, i DO NOT agree that my efforts ne put in the public domain.