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From: Johan Linnér (no email)
Date: Tue Sep 09 2003 - 09:09:34 EDT
George Huxtable wrote:
> Johan Linner said-
>
>
>>I keep wondering about the copyright of the design of the NA
>>and such publications - none is mentioned in the paper volumes I have.
>
>
>
> from George Huxtable.
>
> The UK Nautical Almanac office, which is the origin for much of the
> Nautical Almanac, is very jealous of its copyright, and my guess is that
> they would consider that as applying to the layout and design as well as to
> the data within.
The date of the copy of NA I have is 1980. Has the design changed since then?
Maybe that old design was not copyrighted? And what about making the tables
arranged in the same manner but using ASCII only. I suspect there is a gray line
somewhere between ASCII and photocopying.
> If someone computes tables independently, not using Almanac Office data,
> then as far as those numbers are concerned I would expect them to be free
> of copyright (after all, nobody can copyright the motions of the universe).
> But if he deliberately sets out to imitate the layout, I would expect them
> to come down on him like a ton of bricks as soon as they find out.
What I am wondering is then: how different do they need to be? Is there a better
design? Could this mailinglist as a whole come up with a design that was more
efficient and readable?
> That seems rather all-embracing. It would be illegal to send it by
> semaphore, even.
This would mean that it is illegal to send the numbers - how do you tell that
they are calculated in a different way. And how do you send table design with
semaphore?
> It's not stated specifically that this applies to the layout and design,
> but I suspect Johan would be on very dodgy ground if he deliberately tried
> to copy that.
Apart from thinking about designing a NA I was inspired by the discussion about
Lunar distances. It would be very interesting to make similar tables as the NA
but with lunar distances, thus eliminating quite a lot of calculations in Mr
Huxtables excellent series. I am sure the designer of the original LD tables has
been dead for more than 70 years, by which time the copyright is released I have
learned. At any rate it would be an interesting project.
/johan
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