New York MTA Asserts Copyright Over Schedule 395
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."
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.
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.
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.
Re:Why pay when paper ones are free? (Score:3, Insightful)
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 >>
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."
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).
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.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Calling NYCL (Score:3, Insightful)
Never say "never" (Score:2, Insightful)
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
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.
*Public* transportation (Score:3, Insightful)
Supported in part by public taxes. So, its public data.
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.
Re:Didn't this happen not too long ago.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:copyright length insanity (Score:1, Insightful)
What does not having the ability to simply use a work vs being able to license it have to do with the price of coffee at Starbucks?
Why must something be public domain?
What difference does it make?
Why do we have to listen to this discussion ad infinitum
-- Steps down --
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.
Why exactly is this a problem?
Re:Referendum (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is will never fly in the courts (Score:3, Insightful)
No, you're thinking of the federal government, and even then it's not quite what you think it is. Unless the government of the state of New York has a law whereby it disclaims copyrights in works it creates, it has federal copyrights in them. This having been said, it would probably be good for the Copyright Act to make all governmental bodies ineligible for copyright, on the grounds that it's no incentive to them. For example, the MTA's decisions regarding creating and publishing a schedule are going to be made without any concern for copyright. It isn't incentivized to do what it otherwise would not do because of copyright.
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.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
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
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.
BART has similar copyright claims (Score:3, Insightful)
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 [bart.gov]
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."
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.
Re:copyright length insanity (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Why exactly is this a problem?
We are shaped by the culture we live in. Would you prefer one based on sharing or selfishness?
Re:let me suggest a small correction (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm, off the top of my head:
As a point in fact, the Library of Congress has had fights with media companies in the past over trying to transcribe some of their holding to new media.
No but it guarantees the ability to create a copy before the last original is lost. If I have the last copy of a 1918 club recording, I won't be able to make a preservation copy of it until 2038 - since it's 120 years for corporate copyright.
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.
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.
Re:Didn't this happen not too long ago.. (Score:3, Insightful)
rail and bus information is public domain.
Even more than that, information is in the public domain. You cannot copyright the fact that a particular train is supposed to arrive at a particular stop at a particular time. You may be able to copyright your layout of your brochure, and the nifty graphics you put all over it, but there is no creative expression to the fact of a bus schedule.
And still more, is convenience and efficiency so anathema to government that they feel the need to stamp it out wherever they see it, even if it's not costing them anything? Have they considered that maybe MORE people will ride the rail system if they have schedules conveniently accessible?
Re:This is will never fly in the courts (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
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.
Re:This is will never fly in the courts (Score:2, Insightful)
Except Blackwater faces real competition (from similar outfits world-wide), while MTA is enjoying government-like monopoly power over millions of people.
In a parallel sub-thread I argue, that benefits of having a single outfit run the "natural monopoly" is dwarfed by the losses from stupidity, complacency, and outright corruption, that inevitably befall such outfits.
One only needs to recall AT&T, and what it did with its monopoly on "long-distance" phone service... But, at least, AT&T was profitable...
Their ability to raise tolls at whim surely helps. In Massachusetts, the toll-collector's salary can reach $90K. In New York it is very good money [forbes.com] as well — for a job, that requires nothing, but high school diploma. Why does it have to be a cushy union-backed position, rather than something like burger-flipping, that a youngster (or someone down on their luck temporarily) can always count on? It does not have to be this way, of course, but it is, because MTA need not compete with anybody (unlike burger-chains)...
Re:This is will never fly in the courts (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
There is a simple solution here, which I'm sure everyone on Slashdot has already spotted. OTOH paying a lawyer vast sums of money to sue people is easier than paying a programmer moderate sums to add a formatted text download to their website.
Re:Didn't this happen not too long ago.. (Score:3, Insightful)
But this isn't Germany. I don't know what Germany's copyright law says about it, but in the US you can't copyright data -- only its representation. Douglas Adams coupd copyright HHGTG, but he could't copyright the act of blowing up the earth, or putting a fish in your ear to translate.
In the US, you can't copyright a phone book, OR a bus schedule. This is the most absurd thing I've heard of all week, and it's Friday.
Yes, maintaining control of the data IS important (Score:2, Insightful)
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
Re:This is will never fly in the courts (Score:1, Insightful)
Try Google Maps.
Seriously, try it. It's pretty neat the way they've integrated MTA schedules, with the MTA's blessing.
Doubtlessly that is why the MTA is making such a fuss.
Companies like Google pay them for the privilege of hosting this information. If a popular freeware app does the same thing, then those companies will be less likely to shell out to the MTA. Those third-party companies will say to the MTA, "Why should we pay you for the scheduling information? That guy there uses the same info but he doesn't have to pay for it; obviously this info is public domain! Plus, nobody is visiting our website for that info anyway, because they are all using the aforementioned application and thus we'll never make back the money we paid you".
The MTA considers their schedules a source of revenue and StationStops is threatening this.
Re:This is will never fly in the courts (Score:3, Insightful)
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries; [cornell.edu]
I don't think granting copyright to a municipality for a train schedule is in any way constitutional. Of course, as Lessig failed at pointing out to the Supreme Court, neither is a limitless copyright term.