Comments on: Berlin metro claims copyright over iPhone timetable application

By: Copyright and the state « pensées aléatoires

[...] that’s not the end, another hilarious story (via crunchgear) was about a student getting sued in germany for creating an iPhone app that was [...]

By: [Klimbim] 2008-11-07

[Klimbim] 2008-11-07 — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:02:44 +0000

[...] Aber Urheberrecht wäre im Jahre 2008 nicht Urheberrecht, wenn es nicht nützlich für eine sinnfreie Beschwerde zu gebrauchen ist. Und damit schafft es die BVG neben einer umspannenden Berichterstattung über unzählige Weblogs hinweg auch auf Heise, die Taz, den Spiegel und mit ganz besonders stolzer und internationaler Beachtung auf Wired und CrunchGear. [...]

By: Mikey

Mikey — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 20:26:37 +0000

I don’t know enough about European copyright law to be sure about this, but here in the U.S., this information is not copyrightable. It’s facts, and you can’t copyright facts. You can copyright the arrangement of the facts (i.e. how pretty the time-table is), but the information about the train times would not be protectable. This is a very basic concept in U.S. copyright law, so unless German law is dramatically different, this is just silly.

By: Skl8em

Skl8em — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 07:38:33 +0000

Great,
this was one of the best app i ever had on my iPhone -.-
Do they plan to make you pay for the new app(which would be plain silly) or do they just want to waste resource of their company to create (and maintain) something that somebody else already provided for free…?
How is that thing copyrighted anyway, frankly the more news you hear about it, the more you think that i.p. is just a very wrong concept

By: uniqueGifts

uniqueGifts — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:03:42 +0000

That’s rediculous. And with the iPhone and 3G or wireless networks couldn’t you just look up schedules VIA internet? I’m confused.