Posted by
Tracey P. Lauriault-2 on
Feb 09, 2007; 1:44pm
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/Zip-codes-and-Electoral-districts-tp865p883.html
Stéphane Zagar wrote:
> 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.
then the point file is fine for this purpose, until which time they add
new postal codes for new areas of split areas that have become very
densely populated. But that is an issue anyone has with database
management. The trick is to ensure that you are as accurate as you can
be and you discuss the limitations of that degree of accuracy.
>
> 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...
It is not free because Canada Post a crown corporation used its factual
information that it uses and collects to conduct its business of getting
us the mail. Then it made a unique arrangement of its facts into a
database which it sells to make money and i guess they would claim to
pay for maintenance. But also it sells just like statistics canada
sells the data to marketing companies and data resellets who are more
than willing to pay to have a market advantage and use these data for
geodemographic purposes to sell us stuff. So it seems that in a
democracy citizens have the right to buy and sell stuff, and citizens
have the right to be sold to, but citizens do not have the rights to
their own publicly paid for data to work towards government transparency
and the like.
I would luv for us to deal with that last point somehow, because our
public agencies currently have a monopoly on the data that we as
citizens have paid for. Even in a market economy this is not fair practice.
Also, it would be really great if all of you who are working on this can
make what your doing and how you are doing it available on the wiki.
That way we can share the wealth of knowledge being generated and we can
build on it in the future.
>
> 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>>
>>
>
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