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Copyright Ruling On Publishing Calculated Results: Common Sense Breaks Out

Posted by timothy on from the but-then-I'd-have-to-kill-you dept.

bfwebster writes "During the past few years, I served as an IT expert witness in BanxCorp v. Costco et al., in which BanxCorp sued Costco and Capital One for citing (with credit) its web-published national averages for CD and money market rates in their advertising. Judge Kenneth M. Karas issued his summary judgment opinion last fall, finding that BanxCorp's published averages are 'uncopyrightable facts' due to the simple calculation involved and the lack of ongoing human judgment in what banks were involved. Here is my summary of his findings, along with a link to the actual ruling."

12 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. Average by James+McGuigan · · Score: 5, Funny

    Its a rather average ruling

    1. Re:Average by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Don't be mean.

    2. Re:Average by interkin3tic · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's pretty normal for slashdot.

    3. Re:Average by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 4, Funny

      I hate it when you guys are in this mode.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  2. Bad news for Wolfram alpha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Wolfram alpha claims most notably claims copyright for all it's results, even when it is a simple mathematical calculation, or simple english to metric conversion.

    1. Re:Bad news for Wolfram alpha by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Informative

      They can claim all they want. Law trumps contract.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:Bad news for Wolfram alpha by pavon · · Score: 4, Informative

      I just did some queries and the only copyright statement I see is the standard one at the bottom of their page. They do have a legitimate copyright on their pages, including the layout, design and the content which they created. That notice doesn't necissarily imply that they claim to own the facts that are being displayed. In fact, they frequently provide citations for those facts, which implies that they don't claim to own them.

    3. Re:Bad news for Wolfram alpha by fustakrakich · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Money trumps law

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  3. Between companies, there is a differnt law. by houghi · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is between companies, so the laws are differently, or at least interpreted differently.

    Now try that with a company on one side and an individual on the other side. Now switch sides.

    Logic would say that there would be no differnce. The reality would be differnt.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  4. In light of this ruling by kjshark · · Score: 3, Funny

    I withdraw my application to copyright arithmetic.

    --
    The difference between truth and fiction is that fiction has to be plausible.
  5. Judge Karas uses modern physics as an analogy by mpoulton · · Score: 3, Insightful

    From Judge Karas' opinion: "Thus, the output data generated by using Newton’s Second Law of Motion — force equals mass times acceleration, or “F=ma” — would be a series of uncopyrightable facts, even though the output is in some sense an estimation because Newton’s formula fails does not consider relativistic effects."

    No wonder he made the right decision on this case.

    --
    I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
  6. Re:Judgment shouldn't matter by NoOneInParticular · · Score: 3, Funny

    I think you've got a fair point. In this view, I would say that many accounting reports of the last few decades should be considered creative in nature and therefore copyrightable. It seems the banks agree.