[mythtvnz] epgsnoop

[Steve Hodge]

On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 9:14 AM, Aaron Pelly <apelly at monkeymasters.co.nz>wrote:

> On 2010-03-22, Steve Hodge wrote:
>
> > On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 10:58 PM, Aaron Pelly
> > <apelly at monkeymasters.co.nz> wrote:
> > On 2010-03-21, Hadley Rich wrote:
> >
> >> Post processing means that you can normalise program titles (CSI, C S
> >> I, C.S.I etc.), get rid of things like "All New The Simpsons" or "Chuck
> >> HD" though that last one is mostly a Sky thing, add category
> >> information, add episode titles, add HD flags, add movie and cast
> >> information etc. etc.
> > It seems plausible that a fairly small amount of cleaning could
> > constitute an original work...
> >
> > A small amount of cleaning would constitute a derived work. You can't
> > take the latest Harry Potter book, fix whatever spelling mistakes
> > haven't yet been caught and republish it without permission. Not even
> > if you change the names...
>
> I see your point, but I don't think that's a fair analogy. Harry potter
> appears to be entirely original, whereas, as discussed previously, the epg
> appears to be a collection of facts.


As discussed previously the epg is only partially a collection of facts. It
contains a substantial quantity of original work in the form of the
descriptions.


> By extension, also from earlier, if
> effort and creative merit are really not correlated, it seems likely that
> regrouping the same facts creates another original work.


Both the US and Australian copyright law recognise that it is the form of
factual collections that matters. You can't just copy the phonebook and
republish it but you can republish the same facts in a different form. I do
not know if NZ law follows the same principle and it would be very risky to
simply assume that it does.


> All I am suggesting
> is that improving the quality of those facts looks like a good thing in
> this
> regard.
>

If the factual component is not subject to copyright then corrections to
those facts are irrelevant. It's the issue of copyright on the descriptions
that you need to address. In the IceTV case that that's been mentioned here
I believe they were generating their own descriptions and only taking the
time and title from the network's listings. And even then they sued and lost
initially, winning on appeal.

So, if you take out the descriptions and you're willing to risk an expensive
lawsuit, you may be ok. But definitely get some qualified legal advice
first.

Cheers,
Steve
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