Re: shameless behavior of EDB ... - Mailing list pgsql-advocacy

Dave Page wrote:
> Don't forget that the EnterpriseDB website is under the jurisdiction
> of US law - and as I understand it, reproducing this sort of
> non-copyrightable info, compiled from publicly accessible sources is
> perfectly acceptable there.
>

Not really, but this is a common enough misunderstanding that it even
provides some protection under the law here.  Cybertec should put an
explicit copyright notice on all of the pages of their web site, to
reduce the odds of this confusion happening.  Under US law it helps
eliminate the quite reasonable defense you have here, that this was
simply what's called "innocent infringement"--that it was copied without
realizing the content was protected.  If I were a Cybertec customer, in
addition to being mad at EDB I'd also be disappointed that this basic
step to help protect use of my name wasn't followed.  I throw copyright
notices on everything, just basic good business practice to make it
clear the information isn't in the public domain.

However, Cybertec's position here is still correct, if EDB's map
includes data derived from their
http://www.cybertec.at/en/postgresql_customers  (I didn't see it before
it went away)  That content is protected even in the US anyway, despite
not having an explicit notice or copyright registration.  Since March of
1989, the US has been following the  Berne Convention:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_and_Artistic_Works
making its rules here match most of the world, and all of the EU.  So as
of 1989 here in the US too, you don't have to say something is
copyrighted to have a copyright, it's implicit and automatic upon
publication.  In most countries the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty helped
reinforce there's no difference for digital distribution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Intellectual_Property_Organization_Copyright_Treaty

Basically, copying stuff off another website outside of the usual "fair
use" guidelines is always prohibited in most of the world.  This
restriction is the same one for why people trying to submit patches to
PostgreSQL with "download from my web site here" are always told to
submit their patch to the mailing list instead.  The project can never
use web content unless the page itself is extremely clear that it grants
appropriate license terms.  I suspect EDB's web team should have a
little talk with the legal department there about borrowing this
content, and when it's done any of those orange dots derived from
Cybertec's site will go away.

P.S. the right way to have handled this is to mail a letter to EDB
saying their site is using copyrighted material and they should stop.
Sending something to this mailing list is satisfying in terms of getting
a fast resolution, but it's not following the right sort of procedures
to protect that copyrighted data either.  I am certainly not a lawyer,
but I do know paper is the right way to send this sort of message if you
want to protect what you're written.

--
Greg Smith   2ndQuadrant US    greg@2ndQuadrant.com   Baltimore, MD
PostgreSQL Training, Services, and 24x7 Support  www.2ndQuadrant.us