Just because something was hard work, doesn't mean you're automatically entitled to make money from it.

Sure. But if something was hard work and someone *else* goes and tries to make a profit from it, you're entitled to stop them. That's the basis of copyright - it intends to protect the people who did the work so we don't all turn into a culture of freeloaders. Granted, copyright is an ass in some places, but here Directmedia is in the wrong.

Its not like they bloody copied it...

It was published, and then used, for another purpose.

Next it will be OED persuing me for checking spellings.

or imdb because I checked a release date before I went to the cinema

(no more spel cheks Ever!)

I think the main issue is financial gain.

I'm assuming that the CD that Directmedia published was a service to generate Income, so that all the hardwork/effort/costs was written off to provide a free service and then a 3rd party takes this and attempts to make money from it. Which is Cynical and IMHO wrong.

However some judgement is needed, since it appears that all media researches take their content from Wikipedia. So should the BBC/ITV/C4 etc be sued?

If you were to try and compile a list of the top 1,000 poems in German between 1720 and 1900, *not* using the University of Friebug's list (Frieburg, shurely?), but consulting academics with expertise in German poetry, I'd take a bet that a good number of the poems would be on the university list. How many of the poems on a CD or in an anthology would have to be on the list to warrant infringement? 100? 500? 800?

I can see there's considerable work involved in compiling a database like this, but being a university, the money to pay for the work presumably comes from the public purse in the first place. And if the University didn't want people using the list, why put it on the Internet?

I write this as a full-time writer and poet (though not a German one, living between those dates). It seems to me a publisher producing such a CD would have trouble *avoiding* copyright infringement, if this case is upheld.

Come on people, how much money were they really going to make from this? If they somehow managed to sell a thousand in 5 years I'd be surprised.

Mine's the one that says 'uncultured oaf' on the back.

Sorry mate, the BOFH did that one first.

Since when is seeking financial gain wrong?

How far do we take this ridiculous notion that using an idea that is out there somewhere to make some money is inherently wrong - you can only make money from something if you thought of it first? Well there goes the industrial revolution - never mind every late c20 tech that you can think of.

I think the recent lawyer swarming around IP just shows how little genuine creativity is actually going on these days.

as put in other comments :

The Uni made it available for Free. If they thought it was worth money, then charge for the info from day 1. If you are dumb enough the give it away for free after spending 35k on making it then tough.

And where did they get their info day 1 to compile the list... prob by looking up other sources??

And why did it cost 35k? i am sure i could compile a quality list in a month or 2 max.

Maybe the Uni should be taken to task for mis-use of funds!!!!

The real question is exactly how much of it can you "re-compile" and NOT be guilty of taking their work. Much as Simon stated....if you take the original 1100 - hack off half and name your own half and make up a whole new list...it that wrong and who's going to prove it and how? How many "works of art" poems were even written in that period and who decides what is worth reading again anyway? The actual compilation of an anthology is work and apparently cost some amount of money to do originally, but in reality no anthology work is created in a vacuum.

AC: if you give me a £10 birthday present, does that mean that it is worthless because you gave it to me for free?

What if you give a single £35,000 gift to an entire nation, (maybe a nice, artistic painting,) is it still worthless?

Feckin' Idiot !

...that the University will lose this, to award them damages would set a VERY dangerous precedent.

Out of interest: When the University released the list, did they do so under a particular license?

How does this compare with those "best of" albums we see littering adland, telesales and the recycle bin at charity shops ... the ones dedicated to Christmas, Valentines', Elvis Presley Memorial Tuesday, 15 songs to drive off a cliff to, The very best of what's left of the unreleased crap they made before they were famous or even musically trained etc ... If they have the same bunch of numpties choosing the 1000 best poems as they do choosing the 20 best "hide-the-sausage" songs then I for one can safely assume that 950 of them are complete crap.

Professor Dr Ulrich Knoop sued for copyright infringement in his doctoral thesis, the prosecution claims he infringed on the database rights of others by using information they compiled in the production of his thesis.

Evidence of this can quite clearly be found in the References section of his thesis.

Hey, he did submit a new term--never heard of "shifting the dockyarder" before until now!

Mine's the one made of two-ply.

I will sue you if you tell anyone about this thought I'm writing now. In fact... I'm looking at you, El Reg....... (I demand you don't let anyone see this!)

Hell, I'm just gonna copyright my brain and everything going on in there. Since some other fucker's already copyrighted my genome...

(Paris cos she's copyrighted the important part of herself and what she does with it, but gives it away for free when she chooses.)

Thank you squire... I was not aware. That might explain why, for some inexplicable reason, there always seems to be a couple of complete ''unknowns' hidden within the "very ultimate own-brand-only extraveganza pop collection"

If I make lists of everything out of copyright and publish them on my web site, does that give me right to claim from everyone who now sells any product that includes anything on those lists.

OK, I am not German but am English so can't comment directly, but if I made a list of the 1000 best English poems over a couple of ancient centuries, it would probably include all the poems I could find, due to the scarcity. If anyone else did the same there would be a great deal of similarity in the lists. In fact if someone had done a 2000 list then you can guarantee my 1000 would be included in the 2000 even though mine was done first.

there is such as thing as obviousness and that covers this.

At the end of the day a list is only list, in fact only yesterday I spotted several copyright infringing b'stards using my shopping list in the supermarket. Well it wasn't exactly mine but many of the items on their lists were on mine and the coincidence factor of so many people all coming up with similar lists must be pretty low, particularly considering my list comprised of slang like: bread instead of sliced bread; milk instead of semi-skinned cows milk; pots instead of potatoes; sugar instead of granulated white sugar; to name a few!