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Newspaper Articles Not Copyrightable In Slovakia

Posted by Unknown on from the us-to-issue-trade-sanctions dept.

Yenya writes "In Slovakia, newspaper articles can be freely aggregated and archived, and are not worth copyright protection. The district court in Bratislava, Slovakia, stated in the case between news publishing house Ecopress and a news monitoring company Storin, that while the news articles manifests traces of creativity, it is not enough to be considered worth protecting the authors rights (English translation)."

11 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Because, they are not worth by rastos1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Most likely, they are not worth protection, because they are generally crap. Journalism is a dying art. All you get is poorly translated blurbs from AP/AFP/Reuters. With population of 5 millions is not worth attention of foreign reporters and the only case where I've seen local reporters to get to the bottom of the issue are some consumer-protection cases. Never in science, politics or corruption, etc. But who cares. Most people just want tabloid, so they get that.

    I get better news coverage here, than from newspaper articles.

  2. I live in Slovakia by SlovakWakko · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The copyright lobby is still trying to locate us on the map. Once they find us, our politicians will last maybe 3 minutes...

  3. Interesting by gmhowell · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There is plenty of creativity in journalism. In the US, journos exhibit creativity when they try to create two sides out of a one sided issue, conjures up non existent reasons for an illegal war, or print outright works of fiction as fact.

    --
    Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
    1. Re:Interesting by LordLimecat · · Score: 3, Informative

      When you say "illegal war", you mean "military activity not authorized authorized by congress?"

      Because heres the huge irony of all these bashing statements about "Bushe's War" being illegal getting +5 interesting: All of Bush's military activity was explicitly authorized [wikipedia.org] by Congress, in one case by a landslide [wikipedia.org]. The huge irony here is that Obama voted "yea" for both.

      The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for Obama, despite his vocal opposition to non-authorized military activity-- Libya was not approved by Congress (though it was by the UN; I guess that trumps constitutionality requirements in Obama's book).

      To be clear, I am not against the intervention in Libya-- I can give Obama credit where credit is due; but there is some HUGE hypocrisy from a guy who stated
      "The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."
      and even more so from those who ignore Libya and continue blithely attacking Bush. At least Obama had the good sense to shut up about Bush's "Kinetic Military Actions" being unconstitutional; yall should take a page out of his book.

  4. Re:In Slovakia.... by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You sure? These comments are original works of me, my opinion, my creation.

    You have to see the difference between information and creation. That Hydrogen is the lightest element in the periodic table is not copyrightable. It's information. Even if I create an elaborate statement that culminates in its essence in this and little else, there's no chance that I'll retain copyright of it. Because the main part of what I created is still just the information that hydrogen is the element with the least mass.

    A fantasy story about various atoms coming together and having a party, while playing puns on their weight and some of their properties (and look how fat uranium looks, any more yellow cake and she's gonna blow!) is a different matter. That IS copyrightable.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  5. Re:In Slovakia... by airfoobar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No no no, in America copyright owns you. In Slovakia, copyright knows its place.

  6. Re:In Slovakia.... by ciderbrew · · Score: 5, Funny

    You sure? These comments are original works of me, my opinion, my creation.

    You have to see the difference between information and creation. That Hydrogen is the lightest element in the periodic table is not copyrightable. It's information. Even if I create an elaborate statement that culminates in its essence in this and little else, there's no chance that I'll retain copyright of it. Because the main part of what I created is still just the information that hydrogen is the element with the least mass.

    A fantasy story about various atoms coming together and having a party, while playing puns on their weight and some of their properties (and look how fat uranium looks, any more yellow cake and she's gonna blow!) is a different matter. That IS copyrightable.

    Does this mean I can't use the quote button?

  7. Re:In Slovakia.... by aix+tom · · Score: 5, Funny

    You seem confused. The copyright of facts and the copyright of newspaper articles are two distinct things.

    That may indeed be true in the US, where "facts" and "newspaper articles" definitely are two distinct things most of the time.

  8. Finally a test case by Mathinker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Will this cause the total collapse of the Slovakian news business? My suspicion is "no".

    Anyway, it will be interesting to see what happens, so finally there might be some (slightly) more objective evidence for those of us who are interested in how the current copyright laws encourage or discourage various economic endeavors.

  9. We could cut the copyright on newspaper articles by rollingcalf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... down to 5 or 10 days after publication, and it wouldn't kill the incentives of journalists to research and write the articles, or of newspapers to publish them. Nearly all of their monetary value is realized in the first 48 hours after publication.

    Cutting the copyright short would also make it easier for newspapers to make their archives of old articles available. In America some newspapers get cockblocked by journalists suing to collect royalties again on years-old articles just because the article is republished in a different medium.

    --
    ---------
    There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
  10. Re:Manipulative wording by Trevin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's closer, but monopolizing the news is not a right. It's a privilege which may (or may not) be granted by the government.