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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.'"
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.
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.
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.