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Copyright Decision In Australia Vindicates 3d-Party EPG Provider

Posted by timothy on from the facts-and-figures dept.

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."

49 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. This is great by Hecatonchires · · Score: 4, Insightful

    IceTV provide a decent product, and the big companies were trying to stifle it while they faffed around. Good to see them win.

    --

    Yay me!

    1. Re:This is great by Techman83 · · Score: 1

      Yep, been using it for a few years now, got really tired of tweaking my grabber every couple of weeks when it broke or some provider changed the way they displayed information. IceTV has literally been, pay money, download grabber for MythTV, follow the basic instructions and leave it alone.

      Wonder how long till they start populating the data properly?

      --
      # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i cat
      Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
    2. Re:This is great by Chuck+Chunder · · Score: 1

      What do you mean by "populating the data properly"?

      --
      Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
    3. Re:This is great by Techman83 · · Score: 1

      Well IceTV to get around the previous ruling, IceTV only posted what could be "predicted" to be scheduled. So quite often you would see "Channel 9 and Affiliates only" or something similar. So what I meant was, I wonder when they will change from "Predicting" to doing what they do for all the other channels.

      --
      # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i cat
      Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
    4. Re:This is great by BrokenHalo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Channel 9 already gets around any automatic recording by grossly misrepresenting their timetable. Anyone who uses it will have a large section of advertising (or the previous program) at the beginning of their recording, and the end will be chopped off. The difference in timing is usually around 12 minutes for primetime, but I have known it stretch to over 20 minutes on occasion.

    5. Re:This is great by NoMaster · · Score: 1

      got really tired of tweaking my grabber every couple of weeks when it broke or some provider changed the way they displayed information

      You wrote your grabber wrong ;-)

      When the then-current Aus grabber (JavaXMLTV?) stopped chasing the moving target of the TV guide websites when they went to Javascript 'encryption' in about 2005 or 2006, I - a half-arsed programmer if ever there was one - sat down and decided to write my own. One week, and a bit of lateral thinking* later, I had a working grabber. Outside of maybe the half-dozen times they've changed channel designations or radically changed the individual event pages, that grabber has worked continuously since then. I still use it to feed EPG data to my Topfield.

      (Actually, looking at my original code, I lie a bit - they made a big change in November 2007, so I took the opportunity to re-write my original grabber, though it still uses the same method I originally came up with. I've made exactly one change - not guide-provider related, but due to a protocol spec change - to the grabber part since then.)

      (* Not going to reveal it here in case they twig and close that particular loophole - though it'd be hard, and actually hurt them web-wise to do it - but think WAP and the World's Biggest Proxy... ;-)

      --
      What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
  2. Anonymous Coward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is great news for us Australians who use the IceTV service - its adds TIVO like features to PVR recorders.
    Now Channel Nine might actually play nice with them

    1. Re:Anonymous Coward by Techman83 · · Score: 1

      Certainly save some space! I add 10 - 20 mins (sometimes more if it is following a show like "Rove Live). Not so bad now that I have 3 tuners.

      --
      # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i cat
      Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
  3. suddenbreakoutofcommonsense Justified by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You can't copyright a fact.

    To think anyone could argue over that for three years...

    1. Re:suddenbreakoutofcommonsense Justified by dns_server · · Score: 1

      You cannot copyright facts but somehow you can copyright a phone book.

    2. Re:suddenbreakoutofcommonsense Justified by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 2, Funny

      You can't copyright a fact.

      That is true, however a TV guide doesn't become a fact until after the shows have been broadcast. Before that time it is a plan.

      But I would go one step further. Australian TV networks are terrible at sticking to their schedule. They consistently air their shows late, swap shows to a different time/night without warning or show a different episode that the one that was advertised. I generally consider a TV guide to be a work of fiction.

    3. Re:suddenbreakoutofcommonsense Justified by bpkiwi · · Score: 2, Informative

      Reading the full decision from the High Court is actually (for a change) worth while. It's in pretty plain English, and is very well written.

      It correctly identifies that facts can not be copyright, even when "colocated" with original material that can be. However, the "original material" may consist of the presentation of those facts, such as their order. Consider a poem that consists of well know facts, but presented in a dramatic and original order.

      They determined that IceTV had indeed copied facts, and that there was minimal originality in the ordering of those facts because they were simply presented in chronological order - which is both obvious and necessary for their intended function.

      Finally, they also noted that Nine Networks had probably not expended much effort to arrange the information, which could also be a factor in such cases.

    4. Re:suddenbreakoutofcommonsense Justified by bug1 · · Score: 1

      There are two types of copyright, "original works" and "collective work".

      The copyright of original works is for just that, original work, like a song, or a book, or a program.

      A Collective work is a collection of original works, like the "hits of the 90's" compilation of songs.

      The copyright of a collective work is much weaker than for an original work, it only protects the collection or arrangement of the original works, and you still need copyright permission to use the original works in your collection.

      The collective copyright on "hits of the 90's" doesnt stop someone from changing one song in the collection, or perhaps just the order, and claiming its a new collection, and therefore eligible as its own collective work.

      So to say its not copyrightable because its just facts is an oversimplification, something might be copyright able as a collective work and but not an original work AFAIK.

    5. Re:suddenbreakoutofcommonsense Justified by lamasquerade · · Score: 1

      Actually this decision appears to disapprove of the phone book case (Desktop Marketing), though as they say IceTV didn't dispute the copyright of the TV schedule, they just disputed that they had infringed it, so the court didn't consider the question in depth here. But maybe it'll be overturned in the future.

      "It is by no means apparent that the law even before the 1911 Act was to any different effect to that for which the Digital Alliance contends. It may be that the reasoning in Desktop Marketing with respect to compilations is out of line with the understanding of copyright law over many years. These reasons explain the need to treat with some caution the emphasis in Desktop Marketing upon "labour and expense" per se and upon misappropriation. However, in the light of the admission of Ice that the Weekly Schedule was an original literary work, this is not an appropriate occasion to take any further the subject of originality in copyright works."

      --

      // It had been Fat's delusion for years that he could help people. --Philip K. Dick, Valis

    6. Re:suddenbreakoutofcommonsense Justified by Opportunist · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Laws in your country might be different, but you cannot copyright a phonebook here either. You can, though, copyright the organisation (the "database" if you want), but not the data itself, unless you created the data yourself, too.

      You didn't create the person's name, phone number or address. But you created the database entry, and that entry is yours. Not the data within, though. So anyone could take your phonebook and use it as a source for his own database of a phone book.

      If your head hurts already, don't ever touch our copyright law. That's one of its easier parts.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    7. Re:suddenbreakoutofcommonsense Justified by Xaoswolf · · Score: 1
      Finally, they also noted that Nine Networks had probably not expended much effort to arrange the information, which could also be a factor in such cases.

      don't networks have whole departments that plan the lineup and scheduling? I believe that there is much work in determining what shows will air and in what order.

      --
      Xaotik Designs
    8. Re:suddenbreakoutofcommonsense Justified by ozphx · · Score: 1

      So anyone could take your phonebook and use it as a source for his own database of a phone book.

      Not strictly correct. Anyone could take the same data set and use that as a source for his own phone book. However, they generally can't take your phonebook and use it as the data source, as they would be likely copying your 'collation' of the data.

      This is why, for example, map products or baseballs stats have deliberate minor inaccuracies. These are enough to prove that someone copied the data rather than collating it themselves, by aerial photos, or watching shitloads of baseball replays :P

      --
      3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
    9. Re:suddenbreakoutofcommonsense Justified by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      don't networks have whole departments that plan the lineup and scheduling? I believe that there is much work in determining what shows will air and in what order.

      I don't supposed anyone knows a quicker way to say "That is a stupid suggestion and you are stupid for suggesting it"? The TV guide is just a statement of what the schedule looks like. It's not used to plan the schedule, it reflects the plan. You might as well say that a great deal of work went into making the price list at your local agricultural supply. It's true that the prices are based on a variety of factors as diverse as the rainfall in the midwest and the price of beef in Japan, but that doesn't grant the price list all the complexity of the universe. It's just a list of prices, just as the TV guide is just a list of shows. Synopses are probably provided with the majority of the programming.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    10. Re:suddenbreakoutofcommonsense Justified by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 1

      So anyone could take your phonebook and use it as a source for his own database of a phone book.

      They can still get you if they faked some data and you copied the fake data. Fake data aren't facts and thus protected by copyright, so if you copy the fake data, you've violated copyright.

      This is done all over the place. Dictionaries will have fake words, phone books will have fake names, numbers, or addresses, even books reprinted from the public domain may change a word or a sentence or a spelling slightly and get you for infringement that way.

      So if you're going to copy someone else's collection of facts or other public data, you'd better do a differential analysis of multiple independent sources of those facts to weed out the copyrighted entries before you publish.

      --
      Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
  4. Way to go Australia by KlaymenDK · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    --
    "Good news, everyone!"
    1. Re:Way to go Australia by sr180 · · Score: 1

      Same thing, A Collection of Facts can be copyrighted. This has been tested under Australian law in a case where a company was copying the phone book.

      --
      In Soviet Russia the insensitive clod is YOU!
    2. Re:Way to go Australia by bpkiwi · · Score: 1

      Interestingly, one of the deciding factors in this case was that Nine claimed the copyright of their weekly schedules was being infringed, not the copyright of the database as a whole. The court then decided that only a small part of any schedule was being copied, and that part had little originality.

      It might have been different if they had considered it as copying the scheduling database as a whole, since it might have ammounted to a substantial part then (but I doubt it).

    3. Re:Way to go Australia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Factual information can only be copyrighted by the Crown, who gets special treatment.

  5. Legal whotnots by Chuck+Chunder · · Score: 4, Informative

    Can be found here.

    Well done Ice TV.

    --
    Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
  6. Anonymous Coward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Now if they could just get the stations to start and end shows at the advertised times!

  7. It was ridiculous in the first place! by AbRASiON · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It ENCOURAGES PEOPLE TO WATCH THEIR STATION!

    Are they so scared their programming is that bad, that they don't want people to know what they have on?
    It's one of the most stupid things a company has ever done, it's not like sharing the content, it's a bloody listing.

    Someone needs to slap channel 9 on the upside of the head, wtf were they thinking?

    1. Re:It was ridiculous in the first place! by Techman83 · · Score: 1

      Couldn't agree more, I've been using IceTV since 2006 and here's some stats since January 2008.

      Title | Recorded | Last Recorded
      TEN Digital | 188 | April 21 2009
      7 Digital | 40 | April 20 2009
      Nine Digital | 34 | April 11 2009
      ONE Digital | 24 | March 10 2009
      Nine HD | 11 | April 20 2009
      SBS | 10 | March 31 2009
      7 HD Digital | 10 | April 10 2009
      ABC1 | 10 | April 12 2009
      ONE HD | 1 | March 16 2009

      Sure there is a bit of a bias to Ten Digital as My partner enjoys Neighbours, but still I regularly missed recording/watching shows I might have otherwise watched if it appeared in my guide data. I also still watch a lot of LiveTV, so they really don't miss out on that much AD revenue.

      --
      # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i cat
      Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
    2. Re:It was ridiculous in the first place! by CarpetShark · · Score: 1

      It ENCOURAGES PEOPLE TO WATCH THEIR STATION!

      But not their website. And since TV might one day be replaced by online media, that could be a legitimate worry. Still, I agree that preventing people from obtaining a TV schedule is not an option.

    3. Re:It was ridiculous in the first place! by njen · · Score: 1

      I could be wrong, but I think what was at stake here was a potential revenue stream. If Channel 9 was legally the only service to offer this data, then they could charge what they wanted for it to other companies.

      But with this ruling, they basically will not have a monopoly over that service, and other companies can compete on equal footing. And a good call too!

    4. Re:It was ridiculous in the first place! by AbRASiON · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I equate charging for a TV guide to the same thing as charging me for the price list of a store, it's lunacy.

    5. Re:It was ridiculous in the first place! by Techman83 · · Score: 1

      Their website is atrocious, so very very busy.. glad I don't have to go there anymore Nine

      --
      # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i cat
      Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
    6. Re:It was ridiculous in the first place! by CarpetShark · · Score: 1

      I can imagine. Many of the official UK sites for TV schedules are horrible too.

    7. Re:It was ridiculous in the first place! by njen · · Score: 1

      They won't be charging the consumer, they would be charging other companies who want to use this data.

    8. Re:It was ridiculous in the first place! by Hucko · · Score: 1

      And when you reply to give feed back to shows (this irks me particularly on current affairs type shows), they give you a 8mm x 5mm box to fit a response into. gah

      --
      Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
    9. Re:It was ridiculous in the first place! by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      What a wonderful Idea! Charge for the price list! Brilliant!

      Why hasn't anyone thought of this before???

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    10. Re:It was ridiculous in the first place! by compro01 · · Score: 1

      They have.

      --
      upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
    11. Re:It was ridiculous in the first place! by wilko11 · · Score: 1

      It ENCOURAGES PEOPLE TO WATCH THEIR STATION!

      I think that what they were worried about is that it encourages people to record their station with a PVR and then skip the advertising.

      TIVO in Australia has ad skipping disabled. To carry the new "Freeview" logo and gain access to the enhanced Freeview EPG (when it becomes available!) an STB cannot permit ad skipping.

      A non-freeview box with IceTV gives both ad skipping and a good EPG

    12. Re:It was ridiculous in the first place! by bh_doc · · Score: 1

      Are they so scared their programming is that bad, that they don't want people to know what they have on?

      It's Channel 9, so I'm going with "Yes".

  8. This suit has always been ridiculous. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Facts, per se, are not copyrightable. A schedule is a collection of facts. Once published, the schedule is basically public information. As long as it is not a straight copy of wording and style, they never had a case.

  9. Train timetables by b00fhead · · Score: 1

    Could somebody more legal-savvy than myself please explain what implications this ruling might have for e.g. this problem? Especially since para 28 in the ruling states that:

    Copyright does not protect facts or information. Copyright protects the particular form of expression of the information, namely the words, figures and symbols in which the pieces of information are expressed, and the selection and arrangement of that information.

    1. Re:Train timetables by bpkiwi · · Score: 1

      IANAL ... But I've at least read the court ruling

      FunkWorks appears to be an almost identical case to this, they are copying simple facts that are arranged in chronological order, where that order is the natural and obvious order for such facts.

      They might have a bit of a problem in that they are copying a large part of the timetable (all weekdays I beleive, but not weekends), but I can't really see RailCorp being able to claim that they put much effort into compiling the timetable - it's not that big.

    2. Re:Train timetables by wilko11 · · Score: 3, Informative
      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.

    3. Re:Train timetables by Richard_at_work · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The big issue with the FunkWorks ruling is that train times are not facts, they are fiction. Complete and utter fiction. And therefor fully copyrightable :)

    4. Re:Train timetables by Lunzo · · Score: 1

      I disagree. It is a fact that in a perfect world the train would arrive at the time printed in the timetable. They just neglected to print the following facts: 1. We don't live in a perfect world, and 2. The train will arrive later than the printed time.

  10. Thank God? by LS · · Score: 1

    story tag: "thankgod"

    I'm imagining the person who wrote this tag sweating and pacing, then finding out about this judgment and falling to his knees, shedding tears of relief and joy, and looking to the sky thanking god for this miracle.

    LS

    --
    There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
  11. To AC by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 2, Informative

    It has always been a basic principle, at least in the US: you cannot copyright a fact. You can copyright the way you word things about a fact, but that is not the same thing.

    So, for example: your article about the beauty of yesterday's sunset at 7:45pm can be copyrighted. But anyone else can read your article, and in turn write that yesterday's sunrise was at 7:45pm, because that basic fact is not copyrightable.

    That is a sufficiently thorough explanation, as it really is a very basic element of law. If you still don't believe it, http://tinyurl.com/2c9np

    1. Re:To AC by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      Apologies, of course I meant "sunset" both times, not "sunrise".

  12. Re:Idiotic by MichaelSmith · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What are channel9 complaining about... More people having access to their programming? Surely that's a good thing

    Not if they don't sit down and watch the advertisements.

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
  13. So only including 18hrs is legal? by cheekyboy · · Score: 1

    If ICE just included 6am to 12am it would be legal?

    its not identical, but midnight to 6am is useless informercials and evil xian funamentalist brainwashing tv.

    --
    Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.