[hendrik-xdest]

I don't think that a publicly available database means that you can use their data without consent. In Germany any collection of data might fall under the protection of copyright (or you could even patent a data collection, if I am not mistaken). Telephone books, for example, are free for anyone. But you can't go ahead and scan the pages and provide a service that parses through the data.

My guess is that the sources you use might be free to use but not necessarily free to integrate into a software product. Even if there are APIs available I would check your sources to see if there are special rules for commercial products or applications that access the data massively.

[rcfox]

In Canada, raw data (such as telephone book listings) are not copyrightable[0]. The graphics and layout of the phone book pages are, but the data is not.

[0] http://www.lmlaw.ca/copyright_raw_data.pdf

[hendrik-xdest]

I remember a German or European court ruling that states that as soon as a measurable effort is needed to collect the data it might be protected by copyright--could even be the effort to create a management or collection software. At least, I think that was the case but I might be mistaken. Also, I do not remember what kind of data collection this related to in the first place.

[antidoh]

Does that then mean that only the first collector is allowed to collect, even if subsequent collections are independent efforts?

[dllthomas]

Same in the US, as I understand it.

[tzs]

In the US what matters with something that consists of an aggregation of facts is how much creativity is involved in selecting and arranging and presenting the facts. (I said "aggregation of facts" rather than the more natural "collection of facts" because a "collective" has specific meaning in copyright law and I didn't want that to lead to any confusion).

The most important case in this area is FEIST PUBLICATIONS, INC. v. RURAL TELEPHONE SERVICE CO., 499 U.S. 340 (1991). In this case, the Court rejected the idea that copyright is meant to reward effort (the so-called "sweat of the brow" theory) and they based this on Constitutional considerations rather than on a reading of the copyright statute. The Constitution requires that there be some creativity, although they said that the amount required is not very much--a spark of creativity is enough.

In the case of Feist, what was being copied was a telephone book. The entries consisted of all subscribers, in alphabetical order, and the company that produced the book was required by law to produce it. The Court said that there was no creativity in this, and so there could be no copyright even though making the directory took considerable time and money.

If the directory had been a subset of subscribers, selected in some way that shows creativity, arranged in some creative way, then copyright would have been possible.

[codeinvain]

you are absolutely right, a part of our effort running a global service is complying with different countries rules and regulations.