A database that many Unix-like computer systems use to provide an authoritative source for time-zone and daylight-savings data has been taken offline by a lawsuit from an astrology software company alleging copyright infringement.
Astrology firm Astrolabe has filed a lawsuit against a time-zone database alleging copyright infringement. Image credit: Astrolabe
The FTP server for the tz database has been taken down as a result of a lawsuit, lead contributor Arthur David Olson said in an email to a mailing list on Thursday.
"A civil suit was filed on September 30 in federal court in Boston; I'm a defendant; the case involves the time zone database," Olson said in a message, which also announced the closure of the mailing list. "The ftp server at elsie.nci.nih.gov has been shut down."
The tz database, also called zoneinfo, was used by a number of Linux-derived distributions to update clocks on computer systems for events such as daylight saving changes and leap seconds. Accurate time-stamp information is important for legal compliance purposes on systems, and is vital to track when events like transactions happen between computer systems in different time zones.
Software that used the tz database as a time-reference source included Gnu/Linux, BSD derived systems such as Apple's Mac OS X, Oracle database, Solaris and UnixWare. The database was hosted by the US National Institute of Health, and maintained by Olson and Paul Eggert, and also contains historical time zone information since 1970.
The suit was brought by Astrolabe, a company that produces astrology-related materials. Astrology is a belief that the movements and positions of astronomical bodies can be used to predict events and human characteristics.
The suit was filed in the District of Massachusetts District Court on 30 September, according to court documents.
Astrolabe alleged that Olson and Eggert infringed on its copyright by using information in the ACS Atlas, which contains time-zone data.
"As a direct and proximate cause of defendant Olson's unlawful and wrongful publication of some and/or any portion of the works, he has unlawfully deprived plaintiff of income it would have otherwise derived from sales of the same, and has wrongfully and unlawfully asserted that the information and/or date taken from the works is in the 'public domain'," said the court documents.
Astrolabe sent a takedown notice regarding tz database on 12 May to the National Institute of Health and the University of California Los Angeles, which had no effect. In the court documents, Astrolabe attorney Julie C Molloy requested temporary restraining orders against Olson and Eggert, followed by permanent injunctions, and damages including legal fees.
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Talkback
OH come on this is gstting rediculous. time zone data is a publicly accessible database should NOT be subject to copyright restrictions.......if we keep down this path we risk a situation where knowledge will be the preserve of the few....astrolabe GROW UP!!! this is less to do with protecting essential copyrights and more to do with downright greed!!
If this suit is valid the Royal Greenwich Observatory has the right to sue Astrolabe for the use of GMT and time zones in its software and publication including centuries of accurate star charts published and used by this company without accrediting the Observatory, as to what is in the public domain, the Atlas contains information which is all 100% public domain since being based on work which is 2000 years old and inaccurate since the star positions have moved 30 degrees from the original set positions in the Doric Greek original, so its charts are out by 1 constellation, Pisces is Aries and time is out by 2 hours.
Time is calculated with international Atomic Time (GA) from 1955 an atomic clock based yet again at the Greenwich Observatory. The system is totally international and not a US legal construct.
This is not the first suit bought by US law which is in need of huge reform, it needs a proof of merit test to stop these ridiculous attempts at extortion using the public purse. And as a UK citizen I would like to know when my public funded body, public domain information and internet became the property of a private US company and its use subject to US law in so much as the US court sees fit to claim jurisdiction and if found in favor its ownership is transferred to it despite it being here public domain data - or even owned by my public body the Royal Greenwich Observatory.
The fact that Arthur David Olson has moved so quickly indicates that he is aware of being on very dodgy ground.
It strikes me that he has used Astrolabe's actual collection and compilation of data as the basis for his database. Plagerism and breach of copyright come to mind. Nonetheless, basic date and time data itself is, presumably, in the public domain.
However, as a matter of interest, would the Greenwich observatory make *all* this detailed information available for free?
The Greenwich Observatory has released all its historical charts and records which are housed at Cambridge University
http://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xsp?id=EAD%2FGBR%2F0180
Janus is more the online library index, being Cambridge I expect you would have to personally view the originals. That is the part which would be free, archives then would charge you for a photocopy. Its a weird system.