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[coldrex]

Good day!

I got a present from my colleagues, a star with my name.

Quite cool, nice feeling, altough I know its kind a kidding. But anyway - the company (starregistry.com) says they are taking coordinates from Guide Star Catalogue - The Guide Star Catalog (GSC) is also known as the Hubble Space Telescope, Guide Catalog (HSTGC).

Ok then.. As i know, all scientific catalogues as protected with intellectual copyright, right? So - how can we interpret this - legal or not? Or anyone can take some coordinates from the open sources, compile them in its "own unique registry" and cheat people? And its all legally?

[artchain]

Seems perfectly legal.

First, I'd take issue with your statement that "all scientific catalogues as protected with intellectual copyright"

Copyrights protect creative works.  Factual information is not protected by copyright.  So a "scientific catalogues" may or may not have some protection, depending on the degree of creativity used in organizing and expressing the information.  But the underlying factual information - in this case, the coordinates of a star - would not be protected.

In addition, most documents published by the United States government and its agencies are, under federal law, automatically placed in the public domain.  So if the "Hubble Space Telescope, Guide Catalog" is published by NASA, they have probably surrendered any copyrights that may have been entitled to.

PS - that is kind of a cool gift!