[CivicAccess-discuss] Royal Mail uses legal threats to shut down service that provided postcode lookups to charities and nonprofits

[Jennifer Bell]

Just reading the Royal Mail/ErnestMarples.com case again.  The Canadian legal situation is moderately different from the one in the UK, as -- interestingly -- Canada doesn't have a database law protecting sets of facts from Copyright.  Thus, the copyright infringement isn't cut and dried.  

There's a nice write-up of the legal status of scraped postal code info in Canada here, from a 2005 CIPPIC legal clinic:

http://visiblegovernment-discuss.googlegroups.com/web/LT+Schreiber+re+Data+Appropriation+-+Final+-+April+5%2C+05.pdf?gda=R6MBVXAAAAB-i8vOxqswAr3d2Fxkfy23DZZkSa9ufo8Su0Ha9Gzu35BhD-jx1WDe-xqjMbUNBE78LF603hjCKY8fEudDVIoHFfJezJFgH7TNuQXZ2xzrWn1nLGxFicXwwRmjXzviylJtxVPdW1gYotyj7-X7wDON

At any rate, they may have found a free, legal work-around in the UK:
http://www.cloudsourced.com/2009/10/20/cracking-the-postcode/

Did you ever try to ATIP the postal code boundaries from Canada Post?  I remember Tracey mentioning that once -- seems like it should work, and it would be entirely legimitmate.

Jennifer Bell
http://visiblegovernment.ca

--- On Tue, 10/6/09, Tracey P. Lauriault <tlauriau at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Tracey P. Lauriault <tlauriau at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] Royal Mail uses legal threats to shut down service that provided postcode lookups to charities and nonprofits
> To: "civicaccess discuss" <CivicAccess-discuss at civicaccess.ca>
> Received: Tuesday, October 6, 2009, 10:11 AM
> One more article on this topic!
> Legal threat closes postcode feed
> 				http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7700621.stm
> 
> On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 9:39 AM,
> Tracey P. Lauriault <tlauriau at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> The Westminster system is a bit
> archaic with its crown copyright!  THis is a story about a
> British Postal Code Lookup tool!  Sound familiar?
> 
> 
> Royal Mail uses legal threats to shut down service that
> provided postcode lookups to charities and nonprofits
> http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/06/royal-mail-uses-lega.html
> 
> -- 
> Tracey P. Lauriault
> 
> 613-234-2805
> https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Tracey P. Lauriault
> 613-234-2805
> https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault
> 
> 
> 
> -----Inline Attachment Follows-----
> 
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