Re: Bug#224866: kanjidic: Kanjidic is not DFSG-free
Don Armstrong <don@donarmstrong.com>:
> > "The commercial utilization of the frequency numbers is prohibited
> > without written permission from Jack Halpern. Use by individuals and
> > small groups for reference and research purposes is permitted, on
> > condition that acknowledgement of the source and this notice are
> > included."
>
> First, since the frequency can be construed as a fact, and therefore
> is not copyrightable work of authorship, I'm not particularly
> concerned by this. [If there is a jurisdiction which does construe
> mere compendiums of facts as a work of authorship, we could perhaps
> reconsider this.]
The European Union has a Database Directive which grants monopoly
rights to the creators of databases, so the prohibition above, which
doesn't mention copyright, could still be effective. If the
frequencies were manually adjusted, perhaps copyright would apply in
some places, too.
If as you say the package no longer contains Jack Halpern's work, all
this is irrelevant, but perhaps you're interested to know about the
Database Directive anyway in case you encounter similar cases.
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