farmboy - 1:49 pm on Jun 25, 2008 (gmt 0)

just to show that intuitions might not be right... United States government statistics are Public Domain, while Australian government statistics are Copyright.

UK Government statistics may be used for private study or research purposes without prior approval. Using those for any other purpose requires a license.

Further, stats on the UK site produced by third parties can't be copied without authorization of the copyright holders. [statistics.gov.uk...]

Of course, those who want to take the easy road and seek to offer rationalization will copy those statistics at will, put them on a site to make money and call it "research."

And they will call every bit of compiled data, statistics, etc "facts" in an effort to excuse their activities.

This is why I mentioned above that conversing with these people is basically an exercise in futility.
Thieves are often talented at making excuses.

Here's a lengthy treatment of copyright protection for databases, facts, statistics, etc. from the US Copyright Office's site - [copyright.gov...]

FarmBoy