Interesting question. If you look at their legal terms of use, you'll see these little nuggets of direction: Image/Illustration Use Images of people or places displayed on the site are either the property of, or used with permission by, Gallup. The use of these images by the user, or anyone else authorized by the user, is prohibited unless specifically permitted by these Terms and Conditions or specific permission provided elsewhere on the site. Any unauthorized use of the images may violate copyright laws, trademark laws, the laws of privacy and publicity, and communications regulations and statutes. Material Use You may download material displayed on the site for noncommercial, personal use only provided you also retain all copyright and other proprietary notices contained on the materials. You may not, however, distribute, modify, transmit, reuse, re-post, or use the content of the site for public or commercial purposes, including the text, images, audio, and video without Gallup's written permission. And if you do use for noncommercial, personal use Unless otherwise noted, all materials reprinted must contain the following copyright notice: Copyright © 2007 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved. In addition, the date of the survey, margin of error, and sample size shall be reported.
hmmmm... well Im sure big outlets like cnn and such pay for their info, but once cnn prints it or airs it is it their information? Basically what I am asking is when does it become public information instead of copyrighted numbers
They do pay. Basically papers and other media outlets have a daily budget for their news. What exactly is "public information?" We all know the plot to Star Wars, does that mean we can use the content? Fair use may apply, but you'd have to watch your usage context and what exactly was used. It's one thing to say, "According to a recent Gallup poll, 90% of Americans can't point out Texas on a map, including 85% of Texans." It's another thing to print data directly or use more of their content. Again, context.