Slashdot Mirror
New York MTA Asserts Copyright Over Schedule
Presto Vivace writes "Greater Greater Washington reports that 'The New York Metropolitan Transit Authority's lawyers are going after a local blogger, and attempting to block an iPhone application showing Metro-North railroad schedules. The blog StationStops writes about Metro-North Commuter Railroad service north of New York City, and often criticizes its operations. Its creator, Chris Schoenfeld, also created an iPhone application to give Metro-North riders schedule information. Now the MTA is insisting he pay them to license the data, and at one point even accused the site of pretending to be an official MTA site.' I can't believe that this the MTA's actions are going to go over well with the public."
except with a German bus system?
I can't believe that this the MTA's actions
that this the?
There is significant precedent in copyright law that lists of facts or data cannot be copyrighted.
See, e.g. Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991)
Link
The MTA lawyers ought to know that they're persecuting the blogger beyond what copyright law allows. They should be disbarred.
try to stop someone from making their service more user-friendly?
And the MTA should welcome constructive criticism - it's better than have your customers quietly leave.
I guess being a created-by-legislature, public-benefit company, run by political appointees means that you don't actually have to server your customers.....
I thought this was old news... ...but I guess that was maps, and this is schedules?
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/01/089229
Damn near the same situation, though, although I'd say the MTA stands less of a chance in this case (raw data) than in that case (if one could argue that the map design, layout, coloring, etc. makes it enough of a unique piece to be able to claim copyright... how -did- that case end anyway?)
Oh no! Heaven forbid someone knows our train schedule so they can ride our trains! Wait...
There is some precedence for preventing private distribution of public material. There was a company in Missouri a few years back charging a large fee to get a copy of freely available documents about your home. Since that was already illegal they got shut down. If it wasn't I suspect you'd end up with so many copy cats that it would eventually be difficult to find the actual government site.
India has a similar problem with all sorts of fake government offices popping up trying to rip off tourists.
Why pay when paper ones are free?
I can't imagine the greater public will hear about this or care much.
I can't believe that this the MTA's actions are going to go over well with the public.
Unfortunately, very very few people will ever know about this, and even fewer still will give a shit. The MTA lawyers know this, which isn't to say they care who knows.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Where do I apply to patent the street map of the city ?
You can't copyright "facts." There have been debates and legal wrangling over phone books, schedules and sports statistics over the past 20 years or more to my recollection and every time, the courts decided that "facts" cannot be copyrighted -- only the organization, layout and presentation of the facts can be. All these other things like the blogs and software apps are at the VERY LEAST "derivative works" if anything at all related to the ownership of the data offered up through their original "official" sources.
And if facts ever become a form of intellectual property, you can pretty much kiss ALL human advancement goodbye. Imagine a world where facts and history are no longer available because some jackass corporation decided not to publish because it's not profitable enough.
<< steps up >>
There can be no rational discussion about copyright until people acknowledge
that current copyright laws, created almost entirely to meet corporate interests,
are completely out of whack with people's expectations and with any semblance of
fairness or social good for individuals.
The current norm is "Life + 70 years" with a comprehensive list here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries'_copyright_length
This means that *NOTHING* created by artists, musicians, or *ANY* of
the culture created today will move into the public domain in your lifetime
(expected lifetime) unless the people or companies who control the rights let
you have access to it through licensing or sales. You will die first before
the vast majority of today's' culture is available to you legally.
That is absurd. It is not how the intellectual property system was ever
intended to work.
<< / steps down off my soapbox >>
Since they never run on time, the schedules are clearly a work of fiction and therefore covered under copyright laws as such!
The MTA told the Stamford Advocate that without a license, the iPhone application might provide inaccurate information. [...] Ironically, the MTA's proposed agreement refuses to provide reliable data updates.
I never get tired of listening to the silly reasons people come up with when the *actual* reason is "We hear you're making money off of something. We aren't sure how, but we'd like to be making money off of it instead."
Creators of the application should refer to "MetroNorth" rail-road schedules something else like "Mighty North" rail road schedules then make the time for each station "off" by a minute or so.
With this approach, authorities cannot legally come back to say creators are using their data without a license.
How about that?
They should be disbarred only after paying all his legal fees as the prevailing party in the lawsuit.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
london train schedules were copyrighted in the holmes days, too.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
This is why we need the power to compel referendums for city or county wide issues, and make sure the heads of all departments can be kicked out at the next yearly election by direct democratic action.
Get 1% of the population to sign a petition, get your spot on the ballot, and voila! Government officials miraculously stop acting like they own the place. I know they have some similar policies out West, but know of none in the East.
BART in the SF bay area on the other hand is embracing the developers...
http://www.bart.gov/schedules/developers/
Time to start knocking off the creative element in our society so that we can get that 70 clock to start ticking.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I'll take copyright for $200, Alex. Copyright is defined as "The legal right granted to an author, composer, playwright, publisher, or distributor to exclusive publication, production, sale, or distribution of a literary, musical, dramatic, or artistic work" What is the MTA schedule? Sorry, that's incorrect.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
This sounds like a case for New York Country Lawyer - Defending the innocent and the oppressed against the ungodly weight of the CCI - Combined Copyright Interests! A force for good wherever he goes.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
To allow someone else to utilize this information diminishes the power of the New York MTA. It's really all about control. The more ignorant people are the better off the government and corporations are. Too bad most people choose to be ignorant.
...the MTA is owned by the people of New York, and therefore any copyright would mean, that they got the ultimate right... and could maybe even revoke the MTA's right to use it.
Yay for a "free market". :/
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
There is ample evidence on Slashdot, if you're not too lazy to look,* of armchair lawyers coming up with perfectly reasonable precedents that the courts seemingly refused to cite in their decisions. Just because the precedent is there and seemingly applicable doesn't mean the court will follow it.
*I am
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
Supported in part by public taxes. So, its public data.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
So what if he increments every time listed in the schedule by 1 minute? Then it bears little resemblance to the original text but is still useful. The added plus is that in order to show that his schedule is based on their schedule, they have to violate the DMCA.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Unless their schedule specifies the seconds, they are infringing on my 1440 time of day copyrights and I simply can't let that stand. I'll be seeing them in court!
The metro north transit has a copyright on the schedule they produced, i.e. styling, layout but they cannot copyright the data within it. If he scrapes the data by hand entering or even an automatic reading of the page and produces a new schedule with it it is an original work.
IANAL, but this my understanding of copyright law.
I hope he can fight this, perhaps the EFF will step in on his behalf.
IMAGE VERIFICATION IS EVIL!
Exactly the same thing happened here in Sydney, Australia. The rail authority went after someone who web-scraped their timetables and put them into an iPhone app. It was resolved happily when the state premier (= state governor) told them to grow up and stop acting like idiots.
MTA is not a transit company. It's a gathering of extortionists and mobsters. The people cleaning the platforms make nearly 50% more than post-docs at NY research institutions... and the MTA employees are going to be getting something like 4% per year raises for the next 3 years... EVERY YEAR... at a time when mean salaries are plumetting, and the MTA is about to raise the fares twice in one calendar year. Fuck 'em.
I read about this same tactic being used in another region some years ago. IIRC it involved the efforts of a small group to publish regional transit routes online as a convenience, but the local transit authority freaked out and shut it down.
You will die first before the vast majority of today's' culture is available to you legally
There is damn little that isn't available legally.
It's just that not everything is available for free.
Entry into the public domain does not guarantee you access to the original - to the master prints or recordings.
It doesn't give you access to unpublished drafts, storyboards, concept designs, deleted scenes, sets, props, costumes, etc.
It does not guarantee funding for storage, restoration or distribution.
Just write to them explaining why they are in breach of contract and that you consider the contract null and void. Then stop paying them. Worked for me....
Requiem for the American Dream
Honestly, the public transport companies are such losers. Overpriced, overcrowded, inconvenient etc.. etc.. Someone creates a tool which might actually make the use of a train a bit more convenient and the people who stand to profit from this are suing the developer?
Get a life!
There have been a lot of these cases lately. On frequent theme is that the person publishing the schedule is also associated with some type of criticism of the transit authority involved. That suggests that the real reason for the lawsuits is to silence the critic rather than to block publication of the schedules. I haven't seen the proposed agreement in this case, but the license that has been proposed by the other transit authorities usually contains some language that ties access to the schedule data to restrictions on criticism of the transit authority. I wonder if that will happen here.
They publish their data in well-defined formats, including real-time location information for all buses and trains, free for anybody to use.
Anyone is free to write their own applications using their data. TriMet maintains links to many of them on their web site.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
The MTA is supposedly providing a public service in transporting people from one place to another.
In order for that service to actually be useful, a published schedule is required.
For that published schedule to be useful it must be Accurate, Timely, Accessible, Sufficient, and Understandable to the great majority of the public.
If the MTAs published schedule met these minimum requirements, there would be no viable market for third party involvement.
Since there obviously IS a third party market, it stands to reason that the MTA is not providing one or more of the requirements to be useful, to the public it is supposed to be serving.
So a third party steps in to provide that service. It's the American way, and I say the MTA should spend more effort making sure their published information is actually useful to their customers.
But it is coupled with money since it seeks to cut off this young man's income from selling and supporting his app.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Thought I would take a look at the local transit system and see if they had similar restrictions.
http://www.bart.gov/siteinfo/copyright.aspx
Sure seems like it!
"Copyright
All content on the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) website (http://www.bart.gov) including the collection, arrangement, assembly and presentation of pages and all logos, maps, text, images, feeds and databases are the property of BART or its content suppliers and are protected by copyright laws.
You may not use the BART logo, the BART map or any other content from the BART website without express written permission in advance from BART."
Have you compiled your kernel today??
If it is, then anything it puts out is already public-domain.
I don't think governments can generally hold copyrights on works like this.
Forget that it's a schedule (e.g. raw data).
Is the MTA public or private? If it's public even a copyrighted map should more or less automatically be public domain.
The Government can't copyright its work. Unless New York wishes to claim it's not really part of the government, in which case good luck collecting local taxes. The MTA's so-called public servants who dreamed this timetable skirmish up really should be sacked for wasting taxpayers money in the pursuit of inferior service.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_copyright_law :
"Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise."
The intent of the section is to place in the public domain all work of the United States Government, which is defined in 17 U.S.C. 101 as work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person's official duties. In most cases, contractors are not employees.
Im going to copyright the word "time" that way i can sue you all for looking at your watches.....
Just write an other iphone application which can report vehicle locations from volunteer customers. Fuckin stupid lawyers... copyright that...
Whiney pusses and crybabies. "Oh, I missed the train by a minute and a half, now I'll have to wait for FIFTEEN MINUTES for the next train!!"
Oh boo hoo. He should have pulled his pecker out of - wherever - a few minutes earlier, so that he could have some TIME to catch the train. If his source of information was faulty, well, he had an opportunity to use another source. Why didn't he pick up a dead-tree version of the schedule last month? Finally, I'm forced to ask - who gives a damn if this inept dilrod is late for some stupid appointment, anyway? He's been riding trains most of his life, and hasn't figured out how things work yet? Screw him.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
> There is damn little that isn't available legally.
Maybe if I want to buy it.
But what if I want to make derivative works out of it?
You know, like Disney did with all of Grimm's fairy tales.
Ok, I may misunderstand the nature of the 'cure', but generally viruses are 'cured' with vaccinations, right? But, viruses mutate and the vaccine becomes either less effective or ineffective, giving the pharma company the possibility to create *another* version of the vaccine (and they probably get a new patent on it), so viruses are a virtual goldmine anyhow. Why would you sit on a vaccine for any virus? It's not like, just because you innoculate people against the currently dominant strain of herpes simplex, that there won't be a new version in 10-20 years (just about the time that revenues are falling off from the current version, and the patent's about to expire).
I see no financial reason *NOT* to sell a vaccine against a virus - it's the perfect product, because you *must* get a new version every few years/decades. (In the case of influenza, they create a new version *every year* because it mutates so fast).
I was saying why bill the guy for the data when you make it free?
Traffic lights? Right-of-way on public streets? Only people with paid specially polarized glass(es) would be able to see the traffic lights' status or read the street sign's. And - by copyright - they couldn't tell others... :>
Just think how interesting life will be. Just like living in the old Soviet Union, or - ( place here your favorite morass of a dictatorship mismanaged by doltish herds of officious lobotomized uniformed snots - historical, recent or extant; declared or implicit ).
It's ecological ! Imagine how much would be saved on manuals !
It's good for the economy ! Imagine all the extra spontaneous consumption while people run about trying to intercept and correctly (second) guess timetables everywhere!
If Aragones were still around, it might be worth a Groo book, or two.
Does this mean the MTA concedes their schedule is a work of creative fiction?
What? You expect a Slashdot editor to know English grammar?
Those who spend their lives playing video games don't know much about the world.
We don't care. We don't have to. We're the railroad company.
<search terms> +site:gov
Done.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
The Swiss also make some good goose gear ;)
Here in Melbourne, the transit authority published two really good iPhone apps, one which in cludes a trip planner and timetable app (Metlink) and one for checking when the next tram will arrive/how long to your stop (Tram Tracker). There was no need for a 3rd party tool because the 1st party tool was promptly available and worked well.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
Mendicant!
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
This is the MTA. You don't like it, get out and walk. We survived Robert Moses, so bring it on punk.
We don't care if the facts are against us, we'll argue the law.
We don't care if the laws are against us, we'll argue the facts.
We don't care if the facts and the laws are against us, we'll just give the opposing counsel Hell.
There are eight million riders per day who hate us with every mile they ride. What do we care?
They still pay what ever the hell we charge them.
Piss us off and you'll wake up in Far Rockaway with you briefcase in Bay Ridge and the cops coming to arrest you because all of your clothes and all your ID are on their way to Montauk.
We got YOUR number bub, and it covers the 718 area code, bee-atch.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Instead of disbarment I wonder of we can try opting for dismemberment. :-)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
A friend of mine used the new 311 line promoted by NYC's new Boss Tweed, Mayor Bloomberg, to complain about Q-Line service, and was arrested last Friday by 4 MTA police officers and held in city jail overnight until his arraignment on Saturday. So at this point nothing surprises me about what the MTA might try to do.
I hate PC comments like yours. It should not be anyone's responsibility to warn blazing fools not to put steaming hot coffee in their lap and try to drive, or not to iron clothes while wearing them, or that a jar of peanuts contains (wait for it) PEANUTS! Yeah that last one is a real warning message, pick a jar of peanuts and read it for your self. Anyone ignorant enough to not know that a jar of peanuts contains peanuts needs a lifetime treatment at the local electrical shock therapy center.
I am so tired of this "label anything because someone might sue you for them being an idiot" fad. It should be an affirmative defense of anyone that you are not responsible for other people being too stupid to live. Maybe that was your point. I hope so.
Thank you! I will do that.
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that they are probably just pissed that they didn't think of doing an iPhone app first. Or maybe one is in the works and they want to profit from it.
Me and a few friends did a road trip in USA last year from California to Florida and up to New York. And I must say New York had one of the best public transportation systems of the places we visited during our road trip. But what was really lacking was some form of easy to find time table. I used Google maps on my iPhone to get directions, but ofcourse, if I missed the train I had to walk all the way up to ground level again to get reception so I could find an alternative route. Where I come from (Gothenburg, Sweden) we have monitors at every bus/tram stop that tell you what and when the next bus/tram is coming. And there are charts posted where they all go, and how long it takes to get there.
It's about the record of how accurate they've been.
One thing that in the UK the rail companies did when they took over: they put all the timetables a few minutes forward.
Therefore what would have been a late train (and therefore cost them penalties) would be on time or even early.
Keeping hold of past timetables is one way to spot this happening.
If I build a new road and put a new building on it, can I copyright that exact location and form of the road/building? Seems like I should be able to. It would be worthless since nobody else could re-create it exactly since they'll need to build it in the same place.
But what it WOULD mean is that a map that includes my road and building is now a derived work.
Which requires a license.
Also, please bear in mind that IANAL and that I'm in the UK
Requiem for the American Dream
So, how's your credit score doing these days?
It's fine.
A contract works both ways. They agree to provide certain services and I agree to pay for them. If they don't provide those services that's their choice but I am under no obligation to continue paying.
Requiem for the American Dream
I won't comment on the legalities of copyright (IANAL) or the tactics MTA is using (they may have shot themselves in the foot), but there are very good reasons for MTA to want to keep control of their schedule information and limit third-party distribution.
Yes, third parties can often get information out to the public in a faster and more accessible manner than transportation companies, but there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. I should know--I was responsible for the project that first put Amtrak schedules online, back in the Gopher era and then in the early years of the WWW. We also did online schedules for several commuter rail systems, including MTA's, in those early years.
Most important _is_ ensuring that the data is maintained and kept up to date. Having outdated schedules up for download is worse than having no schedules at all. This is not a matter of 'boo hoo, you missed the train by one minute because you were relying on your iPhone--be early next time' as one commenter put it: sometimes the changes can be pretty substantial, especially as a result of construction projects. And yes, the company gets blamed even when the fault is someone else's.
Second, it is _not_ helpful to undercut the system's own communications department. They may not be as fast as you in putting out an app, but they may have something much more useful in process, such as an app that can link to a dispatching database and provide real-time departure information (see NJ Transit's new Departure Vision beta, for example). With all due respect to your programming skill and interface design ideas, users are usually better off with information direct from the source.
Finally, put yourself in the shoes of the system. When we were distributing a downloadable version of Amtrak's timetable, we had a pretty difficult time trying to convince well-meaning individuals not to repost them on their own boards, and getting the ones who had done so to take down outdated editions. They may be dealing with other people who want to do the same thing as you, and all of this at the same time as they're trying to add new features to the official sites.
If you want to do something like this, either as a public service or for profit, the right thing to do is to communicate with the system and get their permission first. Ranting on Slashdot about copyright, government bureaucracies or about the lousy on-time performance of the system's operating side (actually, Metro-North's on-time performance is exemplary--best in the nation) is not constructive. Find out what is in the pipeline, and if you still think there's a need for the kind of information you can provide or the mechanism for delivering it, make the case to the system's customer service people, and you'll probably get a green light and a good deal of cooperation.
Matt Mitchell
Delaware Valley Association of Rail Passengers
www.dvarp.org
mta is a public agency, thus their data belongs to the public. amtrak is a private rail, thus their data belongs to amtrak. years ago someone created a bart schedule application to show the schedules. now bart provides that application. I think bart bought it. I disagree in that a government agency's data is not theirs. WE the people pay thir salaries, for their equipment, their buildings, and all that they do via taxes. thus 'their' data is ours.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
Yeah that last one is a real warning message, pick a jar of peanuts and read it for your self. Anyone ignorant enough to not know that a jar of peanuts contains peanuts needs a lifetime treatment at the local electrical shock therapy center.
There are so many things wrong with this sentiment, from an engineering perspective, I hardly know where to begin. This flies in the face of almost everything we've learned about software development in over the last thirty years. But I'm posting belatedly, so I won't belabour the point.
1. common sense is not common
2. use case blindness: not everyone is standing in a brightly lit retail store, carefully contemplating the interior contents of each individual bottle, with a full slate of ordinary human senses
3. deniability in the edge case (we thought it was just as obvious with these sugar frosted chocolate coated peanut clusters as with the plain roast peanuts, so we didn't put the label on the bottle)
4. adding complexity to little advantage
I just love reading code with lots of condition logic to handle errors were no useful recovery is possible.
Simple: if it has peanuts, label it as containing peanuts
Complex: if it has peanuts, label it as containing peanuts, unless the product is obviously peanuts, and in case the interpretation of obvious ever needs to be litigated, here's fifty pages of criteria to legally define "obvious peanuthood".
Yeah, sure, let's reformulate the entire legal system so we can indulge in brief orgasms of self-satisfaction when the lazy idiot next to us does himself avoidable harm and wails in primal dismay. Let me tell you, I enjoy watching lazy idiots get their comeuppance. There's no greater joy in life than watching some stupid fool attempt to weave his way through heavy congestion with a series of phone-booth lane changes, on reflex and attitude and no anticipation, only to find himself mired at the center of dead stop while everyone he nipped around crawls slowly past in the next lane.
But I don't go around advocating catastrophically stupid engineering practise to enshrine comeuppance as a constitutional virtue.
As much as I agree that your reasoning should be valid, my understanding of the legal realities are that unfortunately, only direct works of the Federal government are not copyrightable. State governments have the power to decide for themselves if their direct works are under copyright, and I don't know which of the states have given up copyright for their direct works, except for Florida, and possibly California.
Both state and Federal laws, however, are in the public domain.
It's fine.
A contract works both ways. They agree to provide certain services and I agree to pay for them. If they don't provide those services that's their choice but I am under no obligation to continue paying.
Sadly the last time I tried to not pay an MNO for illegal charges I was told in no uncertain terms that they would trash my credit rating. Since I didn't have the time to take them to court over it I paid up (if it had been more than a couple of pounds they would've found themselves in the small claims court though).
The way the credit reference system works is completely wrong - the creditors do not have to get a CCJ against you in order to record a default on your credit history. You are assumed to be guilty and you then have to take them to court to prove your innocence.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Agreed - one of many means by which big business has unfair advantages of the individuals who support their existence.
One can't help but wonder how people are able to prevent themselves from laughing out loud when they explain that we live in a civilized society.
I can only imagine the weight of blowback that is currently held back by the dams of unfair laws.
Requiem for the American Dream
This is an example of "Copyfraud." Article available for free download here: http://ssrn.com/abstract=787244
From the abstract: "Copyfraud is everywhere. False copyright notices appear on modern reprints of Shakespeare's plays, Beethoven's piano scores, greeting card versions of Monet's Water Lilies, and even the U.S. Constitution. Archives claim blanket copyright in everything in their collections. Vendors of microfilmed versions of historical newspapers assert copyright ownership. These false copyright claims, which are often accompanied by threatened litigation for reproducing a work without the owner's permission, result in users seeking licenses and paying fees to reproduce works that are free for everyone to use. Copyright law itself creates strong incentives for copyfraud. The Copyright Act provides for no civil penalty for falsely claiming ownership of public domain materials. There is also no remedy under the Act for individuals who wrongly refrain from legal copying or who make payment for permission to copy something they are in fact entitled to use for free. While falsely claiming copyright is technically a criminal offense under the Act, prosecutions are extremely rare. These circumstances have produced fraud on an untold scale, with millions of works in the public domain deemed copyrighted, and countless dollars paid out every year in licensing fees to make copies that could be made for free. Copyfraud stifles valid forms of reproduction and undermines free speech...."