Hi Mate, As you may recall from previous correspondence, I’m not into the politics of karaoke; I just do my own thing, but on receiving your recent email … I have to wonder … if the information is already in the public domain, does it not then become public property, in that you don’t actually own the information; essentially the same as the Yellow Pages (known as ‘ejusdem generis’). The press does this all the time. I am (amongst other things) a radio broadcaster and have every right to broadcast what’s on. I use all the papers’ gig guides, but I don’t have to credit them as the information is public in the first place. Your current situation is pretty much identical. Had you written lyrics (for example) which were illegally reproduced, I could understand your obvious anger, but if it is public information, how do you even know that they sourced it from you? By the way, I do not know these guys at all. It just sort of concerns me that you are publishing some serious allegations and accusations (“…and now, thief”) which may have actually put you in the firing line if they consult counsel. I understand your passion for what you do. I hope for your sake that they don’t take your email any further. Cheers,

REPLY from David
Yes, interesting question. Who does own publically available information? In a recent case brought by White Pages to protect its information against piracy, piracy still occurs when it can be shown that information has been copied by re-typing. Although a publicly available piece of information, for example the details of a particular karaoke gig, cannot be necessarily protected by copyright, a database comprised of many such pieces of information such as those making up the W2S Gig Database, are copyrighted when the totality makes up a list. It is for this reason that the person who copies a few of the venues on W2S (particularly if this is for his own purpose in visiting those venues) is acting withing copyright regulations, whereas the person who copies a substantial portion of the database is definitely violating copyright. The distinction is whether you are using these reference works (such as W2S) as a source of information, or are actually copying the information. The White Pages case hinged on their being able to show actual work in compiling their listings, and of course W2S can easily show the work, timeline, contributors and communications that went into building both its individual listings and the W2S Gig Database in its entirety. Many thanks for taking the time to write, and indeed I do hope that Lyn Kirk of Singing.com.au and her webmaster Steve Cartwright wish to take it further - that would save me the trouble...
Submitted by on 30-06-2006

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