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."
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.....
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?)
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.
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.
Control of Information is Power (Score:3, Interesting)
And here I was, thinking that... (Score:3, Interesting)
...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". :/
Sure they have a copyright... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Disbarment (Score:3, Interesting)
There's some level of obvious invalidity past which it can become illegal, if it's coupled with monetary demands (doesn't seem to be the case here). If the sender of the C&D knew or should have known that the claim was frivolous, and demanded monetary settlement, at least one case [volokh.com] has held that to constitute criminal extortion.
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.
Re:This is will never fly in the courts (Score:3, Interesting)
Alright.
Well since MTA is a regulated monopoly (like the phone and electric companies) one could argue that in exchange for being granted that monopoly by the State, they are obligated to provide schedules free of charge and without copyright. Else, their monopoly will be revoked, and the monopoly given to someone else to operate, like Conrail.
This is the same argument used to force Comcast, Cox, and other cable monopolies to provide free CSPAN service. "Do as we tell you to do, or else you will lose your exclusive license."
Re:This is will never fly in the courts (Score:2, Interesting)
Ever think the high ways for collectors are because it IS a tedius mindnumbing job that they'd have a hard time filling and keeping filled without such high pay? Temporary employees are not great, turnover costs more than having steady employees. Also, with the amount of money collected, you want to be sure these people can be trusted... and that costs money.
obvious peanuthood (Score:3, Interesting)
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.