German High Court Says That TV Schedule Info Is Covered By Copyright; TV Listings Sites Have To Pay
from the copyrighting-facts? dept
I still can't comprehend arguments in favor of allowing copyrights on facts. However, over in Europe they do allow copyrighting of facts if they're in a database, using so-called database rights. Of course, there's a big problem with such things. Contrary to the claim that database rights encourage a bigger database industry, the evidence (just like copyright and patents) points out that the opposite is true. And yet, Europe keeps believing in database rights. techflaws.org points us to a recent High Court ruling in Germany claiming that TV listings are covered by copyright and thus websites that display the factual information of what the TV schedule is have to pay up. In other words, it's going to become harder to find out what time shows are on TV, meaning that fewer people will watch TV. How does this help anyone?
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Filed Under: copyright, germany, tv listings
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Got it all wrong
This is necessary as there is no real consistent standard in Europe for this. DVB-SI is not structured enough and non existent in some countries.
If it wasnt for tvtv, set top box makers and companies like Elgato (Eye TV) would have to either aggregate the 1200 channels themselves or find another company that can do it....which would then also be liable for copyright infringement.
Also, VG Media claimed copyright only on the synopsis and images of the programs produced by the VG media companies (Private broadcasters). They suggested that the description of the program contained a creative element and for this reason it was copyrightable. Not on the schedule (times) which are facts and NOT SUBJECT TO COPYRIGHT. tvtv has been operating like this since the first judgement and looking at their website there has been little noticable change.
Generally, the reaction from most folks has been supportive of tvtv. Some have even suggested that tvtv should remove the channels completely from their database so no set top box EPG powered by tvtv would be able to tune to those channels ;)
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