Topic: Opinion about foreign data

[Jáchym]

I just wanted to ask others what you think about certain situation that hapenned to me recently.

As some of you might have noticed, I teamed up with Ken and we set up the regional station network in the Czech Republic based on his templates and it can all be found here now:
http://network.meteopage.com

I translated all the necessary files, provided domain and Ken was extremely helpful and helped with uploading all the stuff and instructing me how to now take care of it. I have since then added a few stations and it runs nice and smoothly.

And now to the "problem". Not long after this I accidantely found a page looking VERY similar to this one, that even had the same name (!) and to my surprise it even had my station data included without me knowing me about it at all.
www.meteostanice.net

I then contacted the author. He said he modified Ken´s scripts, I think he even wrote to Ken about it and he probably wasnt against it. I wrote him that of course he can use and base his site on those scripts, but that in my opinion it would be better to team up and work on just one map as it would make more sense and I am sure that together we would even create something better. Jirka (the guy making the other web) told me he is quite happy to cooperate, but that was about it. Communication with him is quite problematic, for example until today he wasnt able to set up Skype or anything as I asked him, so that we could communicate by other means than email. He now wrote me it would probably be better to work separately, which in my opinion is a shame, but whatever.

The reason I am writing and asking about your opinion is however his attitude towards data. I asked him how he got my data in the first place - well it turned out it is not so hard, because he downloaded the template I am using on my site and simply downloaded the stations.txt where there are all the links to stickertag files and files providing data from all the stations on my map. He also said he is planning on using data from WU. He himself does not have a station at all and I told him he just cant simply grab WU data from any station he finds on WU.... his opinion is different however. He told me that the more websites about weather there is, the better for the public in general... I know that even if I change the name of my stickertags it wont help (I would have to change all links in Kens template and he would then use my WU data anyway...).

Who do you agree with and what do you think about all this? I feel a bit confused and dont really know what to do next in terms of this.

[weatherc]

Generally spoken do weatherdata allways interest peeps. I know case where someone downloaded multiple of stormtracker datafiles "because he saw nothing wrong with it" and he tought it was OK to build an own map based on the data.

Did a quick look at your page, there are nothing what forbids to download the data, no terms, nothing. In that light do he nothing wrong alltought in courtesy he should have asked first.

Trying to stop un-allowed usage of the data are a chicken-race, what you as provider will loose at the end. If a peep want the data, will he get it, even by parsing html or reading images. Thats the silly truth. Only what can be done is to do that as difficult as possible. No visbile datafiles on the server, be sure Google not list them, directories heavy resticted by the webserver etc.

[Jáchym]

Hi,
in terms of using your images on external webpages that is relatively easily solved by disabling that in .htaccess file. In terms of WU, I they do have in their ToC that you can only use in this way your own data, if it is your PWS. You provide your data to WU and they can use it, so the only way you could use foreign data is if WU provided it to you, Im not sure if they do it to some organizations but either way you would have to have an agreement with WU and probably they wont do it for free either....

And yes I do not have anything such as "ToC" on my page, still though, it is relatively obvious that if someone downloads your files from your server and copies them.... it is exactly the same thing as if you copied anything from the web, you just cant copy whatever you see and use whatever data someone else has gathered.

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

If you've claimed copyright, and I'm not sure you can, especially since technically you're already grabbing public data... your lawyer can send a 'cease and desist'... other than that, welcome to the internet!

[Jáchym]

Yes, you are probably right, people can use your data, fortunately most people here and in general are polite enough to ask. If I was asked whether someone can use my data I would be more than happy to offer it (probably given it would be for non-commercial use), in case of WU it is for commercial use, but that is different because you get something for it - you get your page there, they archive it etc.
In this case it was more complicated because I didnt like my data being used without my knowledge and I also didnt like the fact that somebody is setting up a network with the same name, almost same design and I just didnt see the point of that. I am in contact with the author, I think he is also very skilled and has many interesting ideas, just pursues them in not exactly the best way. But either way I am going to discuss it with him and see if we can find some solution that everyone would benefit from.

[mcrossley]

In reality you probably can't stop him unless you are prepared to launch an expensive legal action. What you can do is block his servers IP address from your server, it may be an ongoing task if he changes it, but unlikely.

Do legitimate clients need access to those files, or are they only used by the server? If the latter, then hide them away so they are inaccessible by clients.

[weatherc]

At the end are all kind of terms or licenses only for "good boys" who reads and respect them. So long the data are available trought an API or plain datafile, welcome to internet, what more intresting the data is that more will there be peeps who trys to grab it. Only way to block the usage is to hide the data/files or block the IP's.
In ie. Nginx-webserver is it easy to limit access to directorys to just wanted referers (like only own domain).

IF WU really wanted to stop usage of "non-own" data trought their API could they easily do that with a API-key. But they don't do that.

[wewe]

I think that the publication of the foreign data is a big problem. They do it all the search engines. Without query take the images, publish excerpts from the files… In the case of PWS data, I think that this would generally not mind if they were published only normal meteorological data and not, for example, the temperature in the Interior of the private. The owners of the stations, which operate their own web site, often the data to other servers themselves send and receive data from their usually is no problem.  If, however, between the owners of the data found just one for whom it will publish its data nuisance, it is wrong. This is similar as with Google. Majority may have benefits of the publish finding their site, but if this is a problem for someone, they should prohibit foreign data.

[Jáchym]

I think that the publication of the foreign data is a big problem. They do it all the search engines. Without query take the images, publish excerpts from the files… In the case of PWS data, I think that this would generally not mind if they were published only normal meteorological data and not, for example, the temperature in the Interior of the private. The owners of the stations, which operate their own web site, often the data to other servers themselves send and receive data from their usually is no problem.  If, however, between the owners of the data found just one for whom it will publish its data nuisance, it is wrong. This is similar as with Google. Majority may have benefits of the publish finding their site, but if this is a problem for someone, they should prohibit foreign data.

Of course you are going to defend that opinion when you know quite well you are the one I was referring to...

[cospringswx]

Just a little common courtesy is all that was needed here. Would you be willing to share your data since I don't have a station? That's it!
If I see a nice script on somebody's site that I like I contact them asking if they are willing to share. 
 

[Jáchym]

That is exactly what I meant too, I am more than happy to share my data if someone wants them, but I do want to know about it and know about the purpose of sharing them. That is why I have a problem with fetching data from WU from other PWS without letting those PWS admins know or with fetching data from their PWS directly from their servers, using URLs of txt files found on other webpages that do have their approval.

[Dr Obbins]

There was this guy up on a hill about 1 mile from here that tried to put on a fireworks show on the 4th of July. He had set up a viewing area and wanted to charge $10 per carload. Even though I could easily see the show from the house, we went and paid anyway. However there were many who did not. The second year they were having parties in their own back yard and not paying for the show. This ticked him off and he cancelled the show 1/2 way through it. This is about how I look at posting stuff on the internet. It is like putting on a fireworks show on top of a hill and hoping that everyone will be nice.

I was sharing my webcam with a few sites including WU. Then one day people at work are telling me that they saw it on the local cable companies local forecast channel. I wished that they had asked, but wasn't too awful upset. They used it for many years and then one day I was informed that they were still using it, but cropped out the section with the Cave Country Weather logo on it. That just ticked me off, so I changed the file name as it is uploaded.

Now if you want to take things to an extreme, there is the examples of a YouTube family video of someone's kid doing a silly dance. The video is taken down because of copyright infringements on the music that is playing.