Timetable App Developer Gets Nastygram From Transit Sydney

mikesd81 writes "ZDNet Australia writes that NSW state corporation RailCorp has threatened a Sydney software developer with legal action if he fails to withdraw a train timetable application that is currently the second-most-popular application in its category in Apple's App Store. Alvin Singh created Transit Sydney after he began teaching himself how to program in Cocoa Mobile. Within days of its Feb 18 release, Singh received a cease and desist notice from Rail Corporation NSW, the government body that administers Sydney's CityRail network. The email states: 'I advise that copyright in all CityRail timetables is owned by RailCorp. ... Any use of these timetables in a manner which breaches copyright by a third party can only occur through the grant of a suitable licence by RailCorp.'" "As a government body, RailCorp information is protected by Crown copyright, a contentious provision in copyright law that has recently been used to block attempts to access information on the location of Victoria's bushfires and even seemingly innocuous information as the locations of public toilets. 'RailCorp's primary concern here is that our customers receive accurate, up-to-date timetable information,' RailCorp spokesperson Paul Rea explained. 'This includes details of service interruptions, special event services, track work and other changes. ... At this stage, it is not possible for RailCorp to grant third-party developers access to our internal passenger information systems. As such, any third-party CityRail timetable application would contain inaccuracies and have the potential to mislead our customers.'"

Comments

No Case Under US Law

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know anything about Australian copyright law, but under US law you cannot copyright a fact. A train timetable would certainly qualify. This might be one area where we get things right.

Re:No Case Under US Law

[mdmkolbe]

The purpose of copyright is to encourage the creation of information/data. Simply collecting existing information doesn't fall under the traditional purposes of copyright even if that collecting is otherwise valuable to society.

That's not good

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

block [...] seemingly innocuous information as the locations of public toilets.

something you definitely need when you have transit problems.

Re:Facts can't be copyrighted.

[Architect_sasyr]

It has been a very long time since I started training to be a lawyer (and stopped later on) but I believe that Australian copyright covers both "ideas" and "information". In this light I would think a fact is considered information. My recollection of the law is a little hazy, so anyone feel free to correct me, but I do recall having this very discussion in a lecture once.

Re:Facts can't be copyrighted.

[civilizedINTENSITY]

The wikipedia link seems to suggest it isn't normal copyright law that is in effect:

The chief recommendation was to end the distinction between the Crown and other copyright holders. In particular, the Committee was "emphatic" that the Crown lose its unique position of gaining copyright over material whenever it is the first publisher of such material. For example, a previously unpublished short story, upon being published in a government work, would cease to belong to the author and would instead become Crown copyright, denying the author any future royalties or rights to it.

tip of the iceberg

[speedtux]

Governments all over the world are asserting copyrights on information created with public funding, or even public domain information.

Particularly annoying is when museums and similar institutions assert copyright over images of works that should have fallen into the public domain by now, in direct contradiction of their mission of disseminating those works to the public.

Potentially, governments can also use copyright claims in order to restrict distribution of information that the government finds politically undesirable: statistics, investigative reporting, etc.

Generally, everything a government creates with tax payer money should be public domain.

Re:Facts can't be copyrighted.

[tpgp]

IANAL

Clearly. A lawyer would have considered the fact that this is not in the US & US law doesn't apply.

Re:Database rights

[raju1kabir]

That, sir, is a very clever idea. If I lived down under, I'd help you write it.

Then again, I've already lived there in the past, and you couldn't force me at gunpoint to make that mistake again.

Public Servants Snouts in the Copyright Trough

[CuteSteveJobs]

This is business as usual in Australia: The Federal Government uses the old archaic copyright practiced by *GREAT BRITAIN* (emphasis is theirs, not mine) where the government holds copyright on everything, and charge like a bull:

* Australian Maps are copyrighted by the federal government's mapping agency AUSLIG.
* Real Estate Data is copyrighted by e.g. Department of Natural Resources. They in turn make exclusive deals to data companies who sling wads of cash their way in exchange for special access. If you a citizen want access you're forced to go through these resellers. The famously greedy Macquarie Bank owns one of these.
* Tide tables are copyright.
* Even Aeronatical data is copyright. The US Department of Defense used to distribute a worldwide database of Aeronautical data, but they had to stop because "Air Services" (a branch of the Australian Government) hated the idea of the public getting for free what they were trying to sell. Instead of doing a worldwide edition without the Australian data, the US Department of Defense simply ended public access.
* Anything and everything. From simple forms to photos taken by government (e.g. a nice photo of that billion dollar aircraft paid for by your taxes) are copyrighted by the government.
* Even *THE WEATHER* is copyright. Print the weather in your local paper or stick it on the website, and you'll get an earful from the Weather Bureau who insists you "purchase a product license".

In all cases the people who run these departments like to think of themselves a private businessmen, but they're not: their capital is provided by the taxpayer and they've got all the protection of being part of the government. They're a monopoly. They can charge what they want. Not like you can go to the government down the road instead. Pigs at the trough.

This is different from the US where under the constitution the US Government does not copyright what it produces, reasoning your taxes paid to collect the data, so why should you be forced to pay again.

In the Sydney case here is the worst part: Their railway system is known as being beyond terrible. Trains don't show up, break down, disappear, bypass stations, ticketing doesn't work, there's bugger all security. There's a real culture of sloth, laziness and corruption there. And here's a guy selling something to help commuters (and offered to give it to the railways department for free) and they threaten him instead.

Re:Public Servants Snouts in the Copyright Trough

[itsdapead]

How the hell do you copyright tide tables? All I need to do is turn up one day, wait till high tide, note the time and date. After that it is a simple matter to calculated the tide times in advance. Heck you can by clocks for it

Clue: if you get on a boat and see the captain consulting one of those clocks, get off again very rapidly.

Your method might give you a rough guide as to whether you'll be surfing or gathering bait. However, even assuming you remember to factor in all that ephemeris data about the relative positions of the sun and moon (which are kinda important, especially if you want to know how deep the water will be) you'll find that the exact times and heights of tides as the water flows around a nice crinkly coastline are a bit more complicated than looking up the latitude and longditude. Random example: some parts of the UK coastline get "double" high tides because there are two routes the water can take.

So, a lot of work will go into producing accurate tide tables that aren't going to leave supertankers either (a) stuck in the mud or (b) fannying around waiting when there's plenty of water. The people doing this will want to eat hot meals and sleep indoors.

Of course, that doesn't undermine the argument when the data has been gathered at taxpayers expense. In theory money raised from selling it should help offset the cost to the taxpayer, but in reality the usual result is an enterprise which combines the humanitarian values and public spirit of capitalism with the efficiency and economic prudence of socialism.

Re:Heh.

[batkiwi]

In australia it was:
-proposed more than a year ago
-went through trials
-is having large amounts of public scrutiny
-has not been passed as law yet

and

-will not pass due to public outcry and a shifting sentiment in the senate.

Compare this to the US, where you'd only find out 18 months after it was implemented, and anyone asking about it would have been jailed.

Crown copyright

[golodh]

In Australia timetables from Government-operated companies *can* be copyrighted mate. Read the article. "Crown Copyright" it's called. Says it all really.

It seems that they had a report advocating a relaxation of certain provisions in the Crown copyright act "to allow for more easy access to public interest information, but those changes have yet to be implemented".

So for the time being Railcorp can sue the pants of anyone who publishes any part of their railway timetables. And they will since they're planning to bring out an app that does the same thing that this app does. Probably within the next 5 years or so, so "no worries mate".

Re:My experience

[itsdapead]

The official position is that they don't want to confuse customers when timetables are out of date.

Sorry - lets put that right for you:

The official position is that they don't want third parties to confuse customers - that's their job!

Seriously, and lets play devil's advocate here, they do actually have a point. If third parties publish outdated information then its still their employees who get to deal with the irate customers. I've got a little picture of Very (self)Important Businessman waving his Blackberry and spitting foam at the poor underpaind customer service bod - he's not going to be appeased by the little "valid until 1st January 2006" disclaimer on the "About" screen.

A more constructive continuation to your conversation would be to suggest that they look to incorporating a RSS feed or similar open protocol in future website developments, to allow developers of mapping and mobile phone apps to incorporate live, accurate data; effectively giving them free advertising. Of course, if their real motive is to raise revenue, we know what their answer will be.

Despite the Australian rail network sounding very much like the UK, There's a nice UK iPhone app called MyRail which gives train times, including "live" ETAs and changes, for any station.

Of course, if it snows, rains, the wind blows, the sun shines or (worst of all) autumn arrives and leaves start falling off the trees, the second thing that happens (after the trains grinding to a halt) is the National Rail webservers start melting...