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Who Owns The Facts?

Posted by timothy on from the mere-aggregation dept.

windowpain writes "With all of the furor over the Patriot Act a truly scary bill that expands the rights of corporations at the expense of individuals was quietly introduced into congress in October. In Feist v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co. the Supreme Court ruled that a mere collection of facts can't be copyrighted. But H.R. 3261, the Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act neatly sidesteps the copyright question and allows treble damages to be levied against anyone who uses information that's in a database that a corporation asserts it owns. This is an issue that crosses the political spectrum. Left-leaning organizations like the American Library Association oppose the bill and so do arch-conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly, who wrote an impassioned column exposing the bill for what it is the week after it was introduced."

4 of 490 comments (clear)

  1. I'm guessing... by plnrtrvlr · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...that most of the people who post to slashdot don't need to worry about being in violation if this bill passes. Facts have never stopped anyone here yet!

  2. my db by erikdotla · · Score: 4, Funny

    insert into facts (object,property) values ('sky','blue')

    There we go.

    --
    # Erik
    1. Re:my db by AntiOrganic · · Score: 4, Funny

      This comment is a ridiculous overexaggeration of the point. Ownership of the sky, sun and moon has been traced back to a group of individuals from an area of Scandinavia now known as Norway, circa 700 A.D., when they filed an international accord stating that Valkyries under their dominion had claimed the sky in their name. Interestingly enough, they did not claim ownership of any stars or planets, so it will be interesting to look back through the archives and see who did.

      To this day, all countries utilizing airborne vehicles flying in excess of 20,000 feet must pay royalties to Norway for the commercial use of their property.

  3. Ma Bell has her hands in this one too by sysopd · · Score: 4, Funny
    Sec 6 (c) Nothing in this Act shall [...] restrict any person from making available in commerce or extracting subscriber list information [...]

    Yea! Thank God they thought of the poor telemarketers!