Copyright, Classifieds and Open Data
One of the benefits of running a global web service is that there's relevant news coming in from around the world. Just yesterday, for example, our Australian colleagues mentioned an interesting court case playing out in the Australian Federal Court.
Australian press reported that Telstra, the local ex-nationalised telecommunications provider, has lost its attempt to continue protecting telephone directories under copyright.
To be more specific, Australian Chief Justices dismissed Telstra’s appeal to overturn the Federal Court’s previous ruling which stated that telephone directories are not subject to copyright. The court found that the directories do not represent an “inependent intellectual effort”, on the basis that they are a by-product of an entirely automated process. As such, the court maintains, telephone directories should not be protected by the copyright.
The repercussions of this ruling could be broad. Granted, the process remains un-concluded, as Telstra could still appeal the decision in the Hight Court.
The ruling is specific to Australia. However, if it's successfully passed, similar principles might be applied to a number of other sectors of the publishing industry, and online classifieds in particular. Creating an environment in which the content could be gathered from any source. An environment that would then favour those providers presenting and organising the content in the best way, not those who merely control access to it.
We at Nestoria will continue to keep an eye on the developments in this and other relevant cases worldwide. Yet, we can’t help but point out that all data residing on Nestoria can already be accessed freely though our API, so one has any need to covet it.
We believe in the Open Data principles. This means we intend to continue to develop tools that will make it easier for third party developers to interact with Nestoria.
So, have a look at our API, create something amazing and don’t forget to let us know what have you built so we can add it to our gallery!
