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Comments: 395 +- Technology: New York MTA Asserts Copyright Over Schedule on Thursday August 20, @03:52PM
Posted
by
timothy
on Thursday August 20, @03:52PM
from the might-be-a-bargain-if-they-always-kept-the-schedule dept.
from the might-be-a-bargain-if-they-always-kept-the-schedule dept.
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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."
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This is will never fly in the courts (Score:5, Informative)
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 [findlaw.com]
Re:This is will never fly in the courts (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention stupid. It's their own best interest to make that information as widely available as possible.
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Re:This is will never fly in the courts (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention stupid. It's their own best interest to make that information as widely available as possible.
Not that I agree with what the MTA is doing, but I can see where they might be coming from, if for no other reason from an accuracy standpoint. I'm sure they wouldn't disagree that it is in their best interest to make the information as widely available as possible. However, you'll note that it says that Schoenfeld enters the data manually. What happens when he has a typo or transcribes a column wrong and borks an entire train? Customers get angry because they miss expected connections and blame MTA not Schoenfeld.
Of course they've got other issues where they've supposedly got a deal with some vendor to provide some kind of mobile scheduling service, but I wonder most about the liability MTA could face if people rely on someone's home grown hobby and it goes bad. Sure in the end they'd come out OK, but there'd be lots of bad press and time spent cleaning up the mess.
As one of the posters to the blog pointed out copyright law isn't the proper way to go about this objective. Sadly it's probably just the first thing that came to mind when Director Somensmuck called Legal and said "Johnson? We've got a problem. I want to know what you're going to do about it before you go home tonight."
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Re:This is will never fly in the courts (Score:5, Insightful)
How about the liability anyone faces for 3rd-party actions not under their control (hint - there is none).
A simple disclaimer would suffice - even one written in Engrish, like the "Do not iron clothes while wearing them" on irons.
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Re:This is will never fly in the courts (Score:4, Informative)
Another reason these schedules are not copyrightable is because the MTA is owned by the NY government, and the NY government is owned/funded by the People, therefore the schedules belong to the citizens of New York State. They are free to copy the schedules as often as they desire, especially since they already paid for them via taxation.
This is just yet another case of government forgetting why it exists - to serve us.
All legitimate power flows from the bottom, up, and politicians which forget this need to be fired & replaced.
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Re:This is will never fly in the courts (Score:5, Informative)
Another reason these schedules are not copyrightable is because the MTA is owned by the NY government, and the NY government is owned/funded by the People, therefore the schedules belong to the citizens of New York State.
Authorities are not "owned" by the NY government. This is one of the big issues with authorities in New York - they were invented precisely because they are independent of state government (they're designed as a workaround for various inconvenient state laws). The state has no direct control over the MTA or any other authority, and the authority's finances are intentionally kept separate. For all intents and purposes, authorities are simply very large non-profit organizations that have been granted broad powers by the state to provide public services, and have governing boards comprised of state and local officials, among others.
Some authorities are actually completely financially independent; they're not subsidized at all. The MTA is not in that category, but it does make more of its own money than any other transit system in the world. Its subsidy is relatively small in percentage terms, and it is not direct government funding, like an agency. It's an agreement that needs to be negotiated and renewed every few years.
I'm not disagreeing that this stuff can't be copyrighted, I'm just saying it's not for the reason you provided. There's no direct link between any NY authority and the taxpayer. There are indirect links, but it's not an unbroken chain between authority and taxpayer.
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Holy Hell! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:This is will never fly in the courts (Score:4, Informative)
What happens when he has a typo or transcribes a column wrong and borks an entire train? Customers get angry because they miss expected connections and blame MTA not Schoenfeld.
This is bullshit. When they arrive at the station and their train is not there, usually they'll ask someone working there or start to complain to someone working there, at which point they'll get informed about the facts of life.
The problem is, a third party service is required to spread the information. In the UK, there are at least 10 different websites, where you can search, book and print anything you could possibly need (including a bus service or a taxi at the destination), and if you're on the move already, you can just send an SMS, and they'll text you back with the information you need.
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Everywhere you go these days (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Re:This is will never fly in the courts (Score:4, Insightful)
>>>Why should they require their staff to put up with rude and aggressive asshats
Because that's what they are paid to do. Just the same as when I worked for JCPenney years ago, I was required to put-up with angry customers complaining about broken products, or late fees on credit cards, or whatever. It's called customer service, and you are expected to be patient with the customer, whether he's happy or angry.
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Re:This is will never fly in the courts (Score:5, Informative)
It's not on grounds of inelligibility for copyright as an entity that this will be thrown out (you're right about that, the gov can hold copyright), it's on the grounds that facts cannot be copyrighted. They may have a case for the composition of the schedule, but as far as the dates, times, and train numbers, they've got nothing. So unless he's doing a scan-paste operation to get the schedules on his app (which I can't imagine, but it's possible), he's in the clear. They're just trying to bully him.
If I were him I'd counter-sue on the basis of a frivolous lawsuit and harassment, and seek damages matching any lawyer fees and lost income due to the trial.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is will never fly in the courts (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:This is will never fly in the courts (Score:5, Funny)
So, business as usual then?
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Re:This is will never fly in the courts (Score:5, Funny)
There is significant precedent in copyright law that lists of facts or data cannot be copyrighted.
You're assuming that the schedule is a list of facts, as opposed to a work of fantasy. My experience with public transport in the US is that it's generally the latter.
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Disbarment (Score:5, Insightful)
The MTA lawyers ought to know that they're persecuting the blogger beyond what copyright law allows. They should be disbarred.
Re:Disbarment (Score:4, Insightful)
After being punted around by a lawyer over lots of BS, leading to the loss of my home, its clear to me the bar for disbarment is pretty high.
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Re:Disbarment (Score:4, Funny)
Funny, if you'd shot the lawyer he'd BE disbarred, the state would be paying to house you, and you'd probably still own your house.
Well, not funny.
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Re:Disbarment (Score:5, Insightful)
DNRTFA but there's no misconduct in sending what amounts to a cease & desist to someone. Anyone can do this, lawyer or not. A C&D is not a court action, it's just a scary looking letter on expensive paper.
IANAL.
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Re:Disbarment (Score:4, Interesting)
(Replying to myself with a bit of historical trivia I remembered.)
At the risk of a tangent, the ancient Greeks actually had a specific derogatory word for people who brought frivolous suits for the purpose of extorting settlements or intimidating their targets: that's what the word sycophant [amazon.com] originally meant (it now means something else, more like "yes-man" or "toady"). And there was a considerable debate at the time over how widespread the problem was, and what sorts of legal reform, sanctions, or prosecution of egregious offenders could do something about it.
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Why would a transit company.... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.....
Re:Why would a transit company.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Most likely because they have ads on their web page. This guy is stealing from a revenue stream (in their mind).
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I thought this was old news... (Score:4, Interesting)
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 [slashdot.org]
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?)
Re:I thought this was old news... (Score:4, Informative)
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Huh? (Score:3, Funny)
not ideal but... (Score:3, Interesting)
India has a similar problem with all sorts of fake government offices popping up trying to rip off tourists.
WHO CARES? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
I thought this was resolved LONG ago (Score:5, Informative)
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.
copyright length insanity (Score:5, Insightful)
<< 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 [wikipedia.org]
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 >>
Re:copyright length insanityKNOCK THEM OFF (Score:5, Funny)
Time to start knocking off the creative element in our society so that we can get that 70 clock to start ticking.
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let me suggest a small correction (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Re:copyright length insanity (Score:5, Insightful)
Why exactly is this a problem?
Great question. I don't have a great answer. Not everyone sees the current situation as a problem, which is copyright is the way it is today.
Here is what I think, and from that, others perhaps will understand why I think the current situation is unreasonable.
Intellectual property, like property, is a complete social fiction - its a very useful one, but nonetheless - a fiction.
Property is a big unspoken social agreement we have that assigns resources to individuals and entities and gives them superior rights of control over those resources. This assignment we call "ownership", and is a critical part to nonviolent resource distribution with many independent entities. In civil society it is simply given that this property mapping of things to people/organizations is "real", but in fact it is only supported, like all rules, (both laws and social mores) if people generally agree - both agree that the rules are reasonable, and agree that they each will (in the vast majority) follow those rules. If people don't agree, laws don't work.
Intellectual property extends the idea of this big shared social mapping of resources (property) to intangible "intellectual" creations (written words, music, video and most anything translatable into computer bits). The basic idea of intellectual property says that if one entity (person, company) did a lot of work in creating something, they should have superior rights to control it for a while. By itself, this is a very reasonable idea.
On the other hand, there is no physical basis to support property rights on information objects like there are on working land or creating physical things. Many would argue extremely convincingly that in a highly connected world, most people would be much better off if there were no intellectual property at all. That only those large organizations profiting from culture creation and limiting access to culture would be those harmed by eliminating IP entirely.
However, most important to the debate from my perspective is one of culture. The shared actions of humans that create the beauty, education, entertainment, and everyday existence for human beings is now encoded very often in digital information used to create experiences we all share. The fundamental question at hand is this: are we better off with human experience owned by corporations, or not? To me, this is the essence of the whole copyright debate - it has nothing to do with the specifics of law or legality, the politics of lobbying groups, or even the money people make off IP - it has to do with what kind of entity gets to create and control human culture, and whether it happens primarily by and for individuals in an open way, or whether it happens primarily under corporate ownership in a closed way.
Currently, we unequivocally have the latter. Large corporations primarily own the most valuable and most widely shared cultural elements in all 1st-world countries. The length of copyright basically only benefits and perpetuates corporations now. Governments with WIPO and other treaties are trying to enforce long, strong copyright protections globally. Its not individuals' creative expression driving how we live, how we think, how we get news and information, how we are entertained, how we are educated - but rather (and I'm being extremely general here) - it is corporations. These statements are extremely broad and there are many counter examples, but I'm referring to the largest factors and the most momentum in society.
I see it as unreasonable that culture created today will never be available to me openly and legally in my lifetime. The only reason the system works this way is because large companies profit more from IP working this way than other ways. The social fiction of IP is no longer a good deal for the individual in this case. This basic understanding that this legal fiction is no longer a good deal for individuals is why so many people redistribute mus
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MTA has a slam dunk case! (Score:3, Funny)
Since they never run on time, the schedules are clearly a work of fiction and therefore covered under copyright laws as such!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Best part of the article: (Score:5, Insightful)
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."
prior art exists (Score:3, Interesting)
london train schedules were copyrighted in the holmes days, too.
Referendum (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Referendum (Score:5, Insightful)
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Jeopardy (Score:5, Funny)
Calling NYCL (Score:3, Insightful)
Workaround: don't precisely copy. (Score:4, Funny)
They're doing it wrong (Score:4, Informative)
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 [trimet.org] on their web site.
Public Service (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:words words (Score:4, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Didn't this happen not too long ago.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Didn't this happen not too long ago.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the problem that they have, is a loss of control over the information.
If something goes wrong, intentional or otherwise, and the schedule that all these people look at through the phone is incorrect... who's gonna get the angry customer call? The train company.
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Re:Didn't this happen not too long ago.. (Score:5, Informative)
I think the problem that they have, is a loss of control over the information.
If something goes wrong, intentional or otherwise, and the schedule that all these people look at through the phone is incorrect... who's gonna get the angry customer call? The train company.
That's the first thing I've read here that actually makes any sense as to why the MTA would be doing this, though I adamantly disagree. As was previously stated, this is the city transit authority -- by definition a public entity. They have no business doing anything with copyright, nevermind suing a tax payer for using the information!
This is almost as bad as the news that the tax payer "bailed out" banks are raking in record profits by increasing overdraft and other fees -- talk about biting the hand that feeds you...
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Re:BART has similar copyright claims (Score:5, Insightful)
One hand taketh, another hand giveth.
http://www.bart.gov/developers/ [bart.gov]
It appears that BART has said to the scrapers; "Here is the data you need in raw form along with some suggested tools you can integrate our schedules into your applications."
On the whole, it looks like BART has embraced these applications rather than raise a stink on them.
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