EFF won protection for Time Zone Database
The lawsuit of the company Astrolabe, Inc. vs tzdata timezone database maintainers recalled. The company-developer of astrological software Astrolabe apologized and promised not to file such claims. Thus, an important database for the near future is protected from legal claims, according to an EFF winning press release .
As you know, the global time zone database is widely used by developers of web services and software (except Microsoft) to quickly get the current time in any location on the planet. Maintaining the relevance of the database is very hard work, because time zones in a particular region change almost every day.
Astrolabe’s lawsuit against Arthur David Olson and Paul R. Eggert, DB managers from the mid-80s, was filed in September last year because they took the time zones information from the astrological atlas of Astrolabe, which, according to the latter, violated its copyright.
Legal protection for the maintainers was provided by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Experienced attorneys from the Boston company Fish & Richardson explained to the plaintiff that the facts - as a fact of the rising of the Sun - are not subject to copyright. They also explained to the plaintiff what consequences the transfer of the time zone database had for all Internet users and hinted that in the event of a loss in court they would have to pay all the costs. Thus, on February 22 Astrolabe company withdrew the lawsuit.
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In a statement, Astrolabe representatives said the following: “Our lawsuit against Mr. Olson and Mr. Eggert was based on a misunderstanding of the law. Now we understand that historical facts are not owned by anyone and, accordingly, we withdraw our claim. We deeply regret the problems that have arisen because of our lawsuit with TZ database maintainers and Internet users. ”
As you know, the global time zone database is widely used by developers of web services and software (except Microsoft) to quickly get the current time in any location on the planet. Maintaining the relevance of the database is very hard work, because time zones in a particular region change almost every day.
Astrolabe’s lawsuit against Arthur David Olson and Paul R. Eggert, DB managers from the mid-80s, was filed in September last year because they took the time zones information from the astrological atlas of Astrolabe, which, according to the latter, violated its copyright.
Legal protection for the maintainers was provided by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Experienced attorneys from the Boston company Fish & Richardson explained to the plaintiff that the facts - as a fact of the rising of the Sun - are not subject to copyright. They also explained to the plaintiff what consequences the transfer of the time zone database had for all Internet users and hinted that in the event of a loss in court they would have to pay all the costs. Thus, on February 22 Astrolabe company withdrew the lawsuit.
')
In a statement, Astrolabe representatives said the following: “Our lawsuit against Mr. Olson and Mr. Eggert was based on a misunderstanding of the law. Now we understand that historical facts are not owned by anyone and, accordingly, we withdraw our claim. We deeply regret the problems that have arisen because of our lawsuit with TZ database maintainers and Internet users. ”
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/284690/
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