Re: Zip codes and Electoral districts

Posted by Stéphane Zagar on Feb 09, 2007; 1:14pm
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/Zip-codes-and-Electoral-districts-tp865p882.html

Interesting point concerning the copyright Robin... Your interpretation of this quote looks correct but with law, nothing is white or black. I wich we have a lawyer here... maybe we could ask to Micheal Geist :)

Tracey :

> In the end, to make a decision on what is best, we need to know exactly 
> what questions you want answered and then we choose the best data sets 
> to do answer that question.

Well... My idea was to take data from Howd they vote and party/MP donors  and sort them locally. For example it would allow someone to type his postal code and know what's the record of his MP in terms of vote, finance campaign, etc. The fact is that people may simply choose their district in a list (but many people don't know the name of the district) and it would be much simpler for us.

My second idea is that I don't understand that this very basic set of data is not free while some others much more complicated are free. (Well I understand that Stats Can want to earn money with it but it's not a reason). So my idea is also to spread a postal code database (in fact I don't know if I would have the guts... and for the moment I don't have such a database). But if this database is not accurate or not usable, then it's not interesting to spend time on that...

Steph


Robin Millette wrote:

I've been quiet, but busy compiling (thus crashing my browser often -
what's wrong with having 60 tabs open?) a bunch of info and pointers
on database rights in Canada.

On 2/8/07, Tracey P. Lauriault [hidden email] wrote:
  

Stéphane Zagar wrote:
    

I don't see how this can be copyrighted. Someone (you Daniel ?) told
that facts can't be copyrighted. I just can't imagine how this could
be copyrighted ! Damned I could call every and each Canadien citizen
and ask him his zipcode and his electoral district, then can't use this ?
      

it is a unique arrangement of facts.  Most databases are full of facts,
rivers, households, telephone numbers.  It is not the fact but the
unique arrangement of these facts that make them copyrightable.
    

Databases are protected under the Copyright terms in Canada and should
be seen as "compilations".

I'm still going thru all this, but I had to share this quote from a
Legal Study on Databases by  Canadian Heritage:
http://www.canadianheritage.gc.ca/progs/ac-ca/progs/pda-cpb/pubs/database/08_e.cfm

"In the context of databases, data and facts are by themselves not
protectable in favour of the compiler. A compilation is protected
where the selection or arrangement of the content has met the required
test for originality, but only these features of selection or
arrangement qualify for protection. A close similarity between data
and facts of two or more databases could be used to demonstrate that
an unauthorized reproduction of one database by others has occurred.
However, the essential focus must be upon only the selection or
arrangement and not the data and facts themselves."

>From what I could gather, scraping the web for this information and
turning the info into SQL ourselves would be ok with regards to
Copyright, but might be subject to
2. Section 326(1)(b): Theft of Telecommunication Service

See for more info:
http://www.canadianheritage.gc.ca/progs/ac-ca/progs/pda-cpb/pubs/database/21_e.cfm