I apologize if this is hopelessly I-just-read-CCH of me. No doubt it’s all been said before, but when has that stopped me?

Copyright only protects “original works”. But original work, it turns out, is a tricky concept to define. On the one hand, you might say that original simply means “not copied”. This would give rights to anybody who puts effort into creating something. On the other hand, you could require a little bit of novelty or creativity. In CCH, the Supreme Court of Canada set out a (possibly) different originality standard that required more than mere effort, but not actual creativity. This standard requires that a work be the product of “skill and judgement”. A lot has been said about that judgement, but I think that I have discovered the truth behind it: people don’t like phonebooks.

Whenever a person talks about the difference between the sweat-of-the-brow (effort/UK) standard and the creativity (US) standard, they always boil it down to that one thing—the UK standard protects phonebooks. And when originality is discussed in class, students always include the disclaimer “of course, I don’t believe phonebooks should be copyrightable”. Why all this hostility? There must have been a wave of heavy-phonebook-fell-on-my-toe incidents in the pasts of most lawyers. Their first tort.

Seriously, though, why is it that people are so sure that phonebooks shouldn’t be copyrightable? They provide valuable information. They might even take quite a bit of effort to put together. Should someone be able to just photocopy the thing and sell it? OK, I admit that phonebooks are free, but imagine another completely non-creative collection of facts that someone would be willing to pay for. There’s no incentive to create such a thing if you have no rights at all and that is what all this talk of originality seems to say. I’m just not sure it makes sense to deny copyright at the point of originality—except on the broadest definition of the term. There must be some way that the phonebook author can have the bare minimum protection. This would prevent him from being so directly undercut and ensure that any copier would produce a slightly different phonebook. In this scenario, the public would even have two different versions to choose from. Everybody wins.

I’m still working this out in my mind, but I think there are other concepts in copyright that can do the work that originality does in North America.

I’m never going to get around to creating these web services myself, so somebody steal the ideas and do it for me… and send me a cheque if it works out for you.

Request a VCard by Email

A VCard is an XML (I believe) file that contains information about you (a virtual business card). It could contain things like your name, email, phone number, picture and address. I was thinking that it might be useful to have my phone number on my website, but I don’t like the idea of just listing it for anybody to copy down. This is where my web service comes in. I create a VCard at the website and place a link to it on my site. When a visitor needs my phone number, they go to this other website and enter their own email (free email addresses would probably need to be banned). The VCard is emailed to them. This would allow somebody to get my number easily but, in most cases, also let me know who is requesting it.

The other one

I forgot what it was. Honestly, I knew what it was just a few minutes ago. We got new carpet put in the house and I’m fairly certain that it is frying my brain. The whole house smells like a carpet store and I’ve had a headache and allergies for days. Maybe it will come back to me if I sleep a bit. ‘Tis late. I’ll probably remember the other idea when I’m driving on the highway and can’t write it down.

Natalie Portman once said: “So this is how democracy dies: to thunderous applause.” It’s how I feel about Google. They are so obviously trying to take over the world, but they do it with such style you just want to cheer them on. The key, I think, is just how easy it would be (theoretically) to do away with them.

Yesterday, Google announced the Data Liberation Front. The goal of this site is to provide easy access to instructions to move your data out of every Google service. You can, for a few examples, download all your email, export your calendars to Yahoo or iCal or Outlook, and move your contact list to another mail or chat client. Data portability has always been a huge concern for me. I switch operating systems, browsers and email clients at the drop of a hat so I always like to know that I’m not locked in. The export capabilities are not new (or unique, it’s all possible with Yahoo and Microsoft as well) but to present it all in one place has an undeniable flair. It’s kind of the internet service equivalent of playing chicken: “Leave the service. I dare you. I’ll even help.”

Google is the least threatening monopoly possible and somehow that just secures their position. Although I will admit I’ve switched to Bing on all my computers. And Yahoo Calendar. And I’m hosting my email on my home server again. And I don’t use Google Docs, iGoogle or Maps anymore. Hmmm… So much for that theory. Luckily for Google, it’s just as easy to get my data back in as it was to leave. Good job.