Re: [syndication] Copyright and Syndication

[Aaron Swartz <aswartz@swartzfam.com>]

stephen.downes@ualberta.ca <stephen.downes@ualberta.ca> wrote:

> My reaction to Moreover's new "Headline Newslink Agreement"
> http://www.newstrolls.com/news/dev/downes/column000809.htm

I've emailed with David Galbraith of Moreover, and he's a nice guy. I doubt
he really means to lay claim to the entire syndication industry, more likely
it was just standard legal junk that his lawyers made him put in.

I believe he's on this list (and if not, I've CC-ed him), so I'm interested
in hearing his response.

> And collections of links are not copyrightable - otherwise there would be only
> one search engine on the internet.

Actually, if I recall correctly, there's something like a "collection
copyright" that allows you to copyright the collection of publicly available
data. It's used to cover things like the phone book, where the individual
information is not copyrighted (it's just names and phone numbers) but cost
was put into the collection and organization of the information. Of course,
I believe this only covers people from copying your collection and doesn't
stop them from doing the collection themselves. That would be absurd.

I think that's the answer to this. Moreover likely owns the copyright to
their webfeeds -- and thus has the right to control their usage -- however,
they can't prevent other people from creating the same or similar webfeeds
themselves -- that's a more sweeping claim, more along the lines of a patent
than a copyright.

Of course, I'm interested in hearing David's thoughts, as well those of
anyone else at Moreover.

-- 
        Aaron Swartz         |"This information is top security.
<http://swartzfam.com/aaron/>|     When you have read it, destroy yourself."
  <http://www.theinfo.org/>  |             - Marshall McLuhan