Copyright Decision In Australia Vindicates 3d-Party EPG Provider

angry tapir writes "In a landmark decision, the High Court of Australia has ruled that Electronic Program Guide (EPG) vendor IceTV has not violated the copyright of Channel 9 by reproducing programming information in its third-party EPG. This case has been running since May 2006, when the Nine Network alleged that IceTV's electronic program guide infringed the copyright of Channel 9's television schedule."

Comments

Way to go Australia

[KlaymenDK]

I recall a recent story about UK train schedules being made available by a third party, which *was* deemed an infringement.

You guys got it right. Thumbs-up.

Legal whotnots

[Chuck Chunder]

Can be found here.

Well done Ice TV.

Re:Train timetables

[wilko11]

From my reading of the decision, it looks like this would apply to the train timetable (but IANAL).

What the court has said is that although collections of facts can be copyrighted, the question is to the degree of originality in the expression of those facts.

In the case of the TV guide, the alleged infringement consisted of two pieces of information; the program title and the time of transmission. The title is supplied by the program's creator; not Channel 9 and the time can only be expressed in a standard way (Channel 9 could hardly claim copyright of "7:30 pm"); Channel 9 has therefore not exercised creativity or originality.

The train timetable is much the same. There are two pieces of information; a station name (which is much like the program name) and a departure time. Cityrail has not exercised any creativity or originality in the expression of this information.

It is the lack of originality of expression that results in the information not being copyright; it is not a fair use claim, so the amount of information copied does not matter.