more :: nz tv listings copyright

Name check

My piece on Peter O’Hara’s attitude to the copyright on NZ TV listings was name checked in a piece by Russell Brown in his Listener column, now available online – though sadly with no link through.

TV Listings as Maps

Recently William Patry has posted a piece on the copyright of maps by which at a philosophical level has some interesting comparisons with the TV listings debate.

In his piece he argues that those providing a public transportation service should not be able to control copying of maps that are required to be published in order for the transportation service to be used.

Is it fair to draw a comparison between a map and the TV Listings? Possibly, after all the days of one channel TV are long gone therefore you require listings in order to decide what you’ll watch.

You could argue that you don’t need TV Listings, in the form of a newspaper or EPG, in order to watch TV, after all you can just turn it on and channel surf. I guess there are people who still take this approach to TV viewing but you could also ride the subway of New York or the tube in London in the same way.