

Company tries to scam iphone developer, claiming they own public data - jmathes
http://sfappeal.com/news/2009/06/who-owns-sfmta-arrival-data.php
Does A Private Company Own Your Muni Arrival Times?
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Timothee
"Muni spokesperson Judson True says otherwise. In fact, he says that, no, Muni
owns the data in question and that the public is, of course, entitled to
access it."

I paste this here, because it's at the very bottom of the article and it
doesn't seem obvious to me that the arrival time of buses is public data that
can be used for free. Well, that's what most of us wish but if Nextbus had
made a deal with Muni to put their transponders on the buses in exchange of
owning the data and giving it to Muni for free, it would be hard to argue
otherwise. I wouldn't be surprised if Muni actually got a special deal because
I think I remember looking at this exact thing for the buses where I live and
that it had to be licensed.

It's somewhat similar to satellite or map imaging, in that companies have
invested money to gather the data. It is public data in one sense but that
doesn't necessarily mean it can be used freely. I'm glad Muni spoke out and
made it clear though.

Another example (of a similar kind of possible deal) would be JCDecaux which
offered (I believe) bus-stops benches to cities in exchange of managing the
advertising on them.

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andrewljohnson
The founder of Routesy should sue NextBus for harassment and Apple for
complicity, and see how fast this case gets settled. He'll get his app
reinstated and probably get some compensation for lost revenue from NextBus to
avoid trial... if in fact the MUNI position is correct.

~~~
menloparkbum
NextBus isn't the company harassing the Routesy guy, "NextBus Informaion
Systems" (NBIS) is. Reading between the lines, it appears that NBIS is run by
a crafty fellow who got NextBus to grant NBIS exclusive rights to collect
license fees for their data, without NextBus knowing the full scope of what
they were getting into. (hence their "we cannot comment" stance)

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menloparkbum
The link is heavily editorialized. The actual title of the article is: "Does A
Private Company Own Your Muni Arrival Times?"

~~~
defunkt
I bet at least some people outside SF have no idea what "muni" means.

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mojonixon
Even if NextBus "owned" the data, it's unlikely any claims they made on it
would be enforceable.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications_v._Rural_Tel...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications_v._Rural_Telephone_Service)

I am not a lawyer, and neither is wikipedia.

~~~
fatdog789
That case is inapplicable; it deals with static factual data collections.

Bus times are dynamic, _estimated_ facts. The act of estimating, via the use
of proprietary means, is what gives NBIS the right to "own" bus (estimated)
arrival times b/c estimations are just interpretations.

Obviously, NBIS has no ownership to historical bus arrival times, b/c those
are actual, irrefutable facts.

