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Congressional Committee Approves Database Bill
thisissilly writes "Ready for another set of restrictions to so-called 'intellectual property'? The House Judiciary committee approved a bill to extend copyright-like protection to databases, despite opposition by AT&T, Amazon, Yahoo, and Google, among others. Currently mere compilations of facts, such as phone books, are not copyrightable. This would change that. Coverage from Cnet, Internetnews. No word on a Senate version. Let's stop this one before it grows."
Done to death but still...
1. Pass Stupid Bills
2. Lie to Public
3. ????
4. Re-election!
Yvan Eht Nioj!
I only bring this up because I'm searching for a reason why they would do this, and I believe that lawyers and politicians feel very threatened by the public having cheap and ready access to the law.
My expectation is that once this law goes into effect, you'll see a number of states remove whatever databases they have that deal with law and assign those rights to a private company, which will be able to charge exhorbitant fees for access, and go after anyone who does the same on the basis that they copied their work, even if the material was independently compiled because there is no easy way to tell a copy of a copy from a copy of an original.
Anyone trying to create their own law database would find themselves in court, and because of the expense, they'd give up before ever going to trial.
This will be a win for Lexis I think.
(and yes, I *like* my tin-foil hat.)
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Surely you jest. Remember what the guy said to Deckard in Blade Runner, "If you're not corporate, you're little people!"
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
now the gathering of what can be defined as public knowledge can be protected by the IP vultures. I guess under this new scheme, copying a phonebook database could violate the DMCA. Guess its BOHICA time
Looking at the bill- it seems to me that it protects the actual collection effort not the data itself. If someone else wants to go out and collect the same information they can- they just can't steal your collection. I guess I'm missing why this is so bad.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
What's up with the Judiciary committees? The Senate one just passed a bill (S1177) which prohibits the sale of cigars via mail-order.
There's a lot of internet cigar shops stressing about that one.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity -RAH
I say we should each start a database of whatever "facts" we have available to us (that aren't already copyrighted, of course), and assign the copyrights to FSF or EFF for open distribution!
RHCE; are you certified? Karma: ambiguous.
Keep the people stupid and they will obey.
The Patent database is copyrighted?
- Phone companies
- Online businesses
- spammers
- The IRS
for having illegally copied versions and/or deriviative works of our database.We'll sell lots of stock at inflated prices, then sell it all just before we lose the court cases.
I mean, if it worked for SCO...
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
- (5) DATABASE
combined with their definition of a prohibited action (making "available in commerce to others a quantitatively substantial part of the information in a database" is prohibited without consent) would seem to make it possible to sue for almost any use of any information without consent. At least, any information that can be decomposed into a small number of parts in some way or another.(A) IN GENERAL- Subject to subparagraph (B), the term `database' means a collection of a large number of discrete items of information produced for the purpose of bringing such discrete items of information together in one place or through one source so that persons may access them.
I wonder if we'll see SCO-like attempts to quickly produce as many databases of as many facts as possible. Anyone using any facts whatsoever could be extorted for license fees or subject to lawsuits by rabid hordes of attorneys.
...ANOTHER sort of "Intellectual(R) Property(TM)". This is getting ridiculous. I'm beginning to wonder if it will ever reach a point where Joe Beer and his wife Martha will wake up, take their head out of their Bibles and their AOL chat rooms, and start to give a damn about any of this corporate power grabbing...
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
So if Information and conglomeration are now copyrightable as intellectual property, can I copyright my DNA and fingerprints and sue anyone who tries to get a sample of either for copyright infringement and illegal tampering of my own personal database?
Considering that I can fully claim myself as owner/manager of said conglomeration of information (being that I'm over 18), I think I can classify myself as a database, and all the information therein...
If I make a copy of a 1,000,000 entry database, then change one of the entries, is it still infringing? How does one distinguish a list of facts from another list of facts compiled independently? Should I be rushing out to apply for a copyright on my list of the capitals of the 50 states? If I create a database with all the elements in it, can I sue anybody who publishes a periodic table?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I just sent in a copyright request for all the terms associated with Geometry. Now that heretical balsphemy will all fund my pocket, and be subject to my rule!
Pi is exactly 3! It'll be illegal for you to say otherwise.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
The ACM is currently surveying its members on whether or not to oppose this and similar measures. If you're a member, you've probably already gotten e-mail. Be sure to follow up on it if this issue is important to you!
The current policy committee positions are viewable on the ACM web site.
This is the equivilant, IMHO, of passing bills making abortion illegal. Phone books and compilations are not copyrightable, says the Supreme Court. Feist v. Rural Telecom. Congress cannot change this and prescient would take priority here, the law would be immediatly challenged and overturned if it directly contradicts Feist. IANAL, but this is my read on it.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
Say "we" present a cogent argument to make our case, do we even stand a chance? All the megacorps have to do is invent some jive connecting terrorism to uncopyrighted data collections and BOOM!--instant overwhelming approval for the new legislation.
The fact that a Senate committee has already approved this bill is a good sign that it's time to stop fighting. It's time to accept the creeping corporate fascism and salute our neo-feudal overlords. Or it could be a sign that we should instead invest our efforts in harvesting the rotational energy from the gravesites of Jefferson, Payne, Christ, and eliminate the energy shortage. Just an afterthought.
Ask me about The Shocker!
I'm for this one, actually. I will find and copyright every SPAM database I can find, and AGGRESSIVELY pursue violations of my IP.
;-)
Hell, some trustworthy 3rd party could create a private "do-not spam" database, and if you recieve a spam, you could go after the sender for copyright violation.
I call shenannigans on this whole idea. I have already copyrighted the entire alphabet to include the formation of letters in a certain sequence to create what I call "words (c)." Therefore any database would violate my standing copyright. Use of any of the letters without express written consent is strictly prohibited.
Hey everyone, round up the gang. Don't forget to ask your mom to make you a sandwich, we might be busy until after dinnertime. Franky, don't forget your inhaler. You remember what happened last time we went after Congress.
Um, this bill has been on the table for quite a while now. (see also)
The time for action is when these bills are on the table. Granted, if AT&T can't budge the rats that passed this abhoration, what chance do you have... Write (hand written) letters to your representatives and vote your conscience this November !
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
TV lisstings are a sort of DB no? So you cna't copy those.
Sports statistics? Nope, don't try copying those either.
Read Epic the first RPG novel.
Expect anything from this. How about copyrighting a database consisting of the digits of PI, for instance? Then math.h would still be illegal after Darl goes to jail...
I wish ordinary people could understand enough to care about this. I wish we could go to their states and to their districts and tell what is happening and their constituents would see these politicians - all of them - for the sellout rats they are.
Do you know what these expansions in "intellectual property" policy are? They are akin lining the pockets of the wealthy by printing more money just for them. No innovation is happening here. They are simply divining "innovation" and "progress" in the arts and sciences out of nothing by the creation of policy.
I pray it will be soon now that this regime of "intellectual property" will collapse - *poof* - when we the people come into that day when we simply will no longer acknowledge these imaginary chains we have for so long pretended bind us.
Tell them we aren't going to play along anymore.
I hope this is a joke.
I'd hate to think the state of our military's infrastructure is in the hands of someone so stupid he thinks he's going to get an answer to this question after he mis-posted it to a discussion that has nothing to do with linux or is too fucking dumb to uninstall an RPM.
rpm -e python dumbass!
(You should not include the "dumbass!" portion of the above line when you try to uninstall.)
That's not true. The Supreme Court decision that all this stuff comes from is known as Feist. Feist ruled, basically, that the white pages is not copyrightable because there was absolutely no creativity or originality in listing : last name, first name, address, phone number.
If, however, you took a bunch of mere facts and arranged them in an innovative and creative way you very well might be able to get copyright protection for the compilation. the white pates isn't copytightable, but some other collections of mere facts certainly are. The copyright would cover the compilation, however, and not the facts themselves.
IANAL, so I am trying to figure out from the bill without getting a headache... but I think that what is covered is really the database in whole (or at least large portions).
Individual items such as terms, etc, would not be copyrightable. Otherwise all you'd really need is a DB with millions of buzzwords etc to start the legal barrage.
I worry about randomly generated databases though. Say somebody put together a collection of words etc, programmed rhyme rules, and schemes/word-matches, then had it generate millions or even billions of combinations. A million monkeys on typewriters would take a long time to make Shakespeare, but how long to cover at least some portion of future short verse using such a method?
I could then copyright the collection of facts that uniquely identifies me (name, address, phone number, email address) as a database.
Any business wishing to use that collection of facts in a commercial venture would then need my explicit permission, or face copyright violations. Perhaps this would be a nice way to get around unwanted solicitations.
Maybe it's time to start backing the IP law mongers. That way they will just get things to a point where no one is willing to inovate in any way whatsoever for fear of being sued, all progress comes to a complete standstill, and the general public finally gets a clue and demands it all go away for good!
"Freedom is the freedom to say that 2+2=4. Once that is granted, all else must follow."
They are trying to take that freedom away by declaring that someone can own the rights to such information.
(Tin foil hats are property of the producers of the movie Signs. You had damn well better register that now, before it's too late.)
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
..on my name and address, thereby preventing the inclusion of my personal details in a data retrieval system. You may say that I can't do this, but I am changing my name and the name of my house to something a little more creative and thus subject to copyright protection. The government and anybody else who wants to keep me "on file" will be provided with bank details for royalty collection purposes.
Stop them before the world become un-liveable
Exactly what the world needs. Another vaguely-worded bill written either by clueless lawmakers who can barely reboot their computer, or, worse, lobbyists who want to manipulate the clueless lawmakers.
Gifts for Geeks - Stuff that really matters!
The EFF might have a model letter up soon. I really think writing to your representatives is key. There is still a vestige of citizens' power left if enough of us do this. If we don't use what's left of that power NOW, we might never have it again.
The company I work for is an ASP that hosts large Domino based databases for our clients. Does this mean we now need to get the copywrite holders (our clients) to give us permission to back up their data? Otherwise wouldn't doing so be a copywrite violation?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
There was already a judicial case which established that though you can claim a copyright on your database, you cannot copyright the collection of data.
The case I speak of was with telephone databases. One sued the other because he had used the exact same data and the judge ruled that while the data was the same, the databases differed in how they delivered the data and how they were set up.
So yes, your database schema and layout may be copyrightable but not the contained data.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
n/t
It's kind of interesting that Amazon is among the companies that are opposing this bill. How many programs currently take data from their database and funnel it for alternate uses (i.e. Readerware)?
to the public in exchange for your copyright monopoly. Copyright is about give and take. We give you a limited monopoly and eventually take your copyrighted (plus have use of it for a reasonable fee in the mean time). A simple compilation of facts, while useful, isn't worthy of this protection.
Also, this could be devastating to researches. Imagine writing a paper and facing a lawsuit over your use of facts. True, the facts aren't copyrighted, but at what point have you crossed the line from using and reporting on facts to compiling them? In any case this gives companies another tool to bludgeon poor people with ala DMCA.
This is an appalling idea that's clearly meant to make a few people richer at the expense of everyone else.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Everyone knows our society is increasingly information driven and information dependent," bill sponsor Howard Coble (R-NC) said in a statement. "We rely on accurate, timely information to make many of the decisions we must reach in a day, an hour, or a minute, and increasingly, this information comes from electronic databases."
"Without the minimal protection afforded by this legislation, we run the risk that new databases will not be created and made available to the public, thereby depriving the public of one more information source."
Maybe "depriving the public of one more information source" would be a GOOD think...in this day and age info is next to worthless because supply far exceeds demand and the quality of most is utter crap.
I for one, would be HAPPY to be deprived of one more spammer's email database, telemarketer's call list or direct-marketer's snail-mail database...
This bill is so wrong headed...these database operators seem to think they're entitled to owning the info they store in their systems. For the most part IT'S NOT THEIRS TO OWN...you can't own the fact that the clear daytime sky is blue. You can't own my vital statistics, or my street address. You have no right to and you never should because you didn't create those facts and they were never sold to you. All you did is set up a computer to store the facts and programs to sort, retrieve and utilise them. Current law protects that already and you deserve no further protection.
MOD STORY DOWN, BILL UP
Geminatron
There's no step three! There's no step three!
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Telephone books. What are they all about?
Are they good, or are they whack?
Hmm... I thought a heard large sucking noise. It seems my unalienable rights have just been sucked right out of me. It seems I'd have better civil liberties in Iraq.
If anyone makes fun of your tinfoil hat, they are either afraid or stupid. I'm not sure what it was like for doubters in Germany in the 1930s except it was probably similar to whats happening to them now.
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
I'll call it: The Lets Give the Entire World to Corporate America Act! Let's face it, the way we're heading, it's only a matter of time.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
You can have all the copyright to facts you want, from now on, I'm just making up my own as I go along...
Reason why there is hope for the future generation #364:
"I wish my grass was emo so it could cut itself."
Laws and documents produced by the United States Federal Government are considered in the public domain, however "many [U.S.] state government documents, and most documents from foreign governments, are protected by copyright."
So technically some state and local governments can charge you for laws right now.
The whole patent system has been ridiculous for years. This is criminal.
I just watched Revolution OS last night. In the film , Richard Stallman mentions this very threat. I didn't believe it could be done. It seemed too outlandish, but, it looks like it may become a reality.
This copyright stuff is getting out of control.
We need to sever the connection between corporate America and democracy. Campain finance reform has the potential to fix a lot of these problems at the root.
When it comes to copyright we can't fight business, but maybe we can end this legalized bribery and weaken microsoft, walmart, the RIAA and the rest in one fell swoop.
its sad that sensebrenner acutally cosponsored this.
he has gone off his rocker and i will not being voting for him next time around.
especially after his little flag burning ammendment garbage.
Congress ~can~ make new laws which overturn existing precedent. That is their function.
;) Prescience is "knowledge of the future"; if that doesn't get priority I don't know what does. Just ask Paul Muadib from Dune.
On the other hand, you are right when you say that prescient takes priority.
The term "intellectual property" is nothing more than corporate propaganda designed to trick people to think of copyright, patents, etc. as being "property", when they obviously are not.
I prefer "Government Granted Monopoly".
Not that there is anything wrong with the Great White North (mid-eighties RUSH song is a different story). Our company was aquired by Thomson some time ago. Working for the parent company here in the US there have been corporate meetings I have attended where it is stated very clearly that Thomson is globalizing. Making intelectual property out of any/all DB's is good for there buisness model, but bad for us. Oh, and the president of Thomson said, "our goal is to eliminate all paper based books". So, if they eliminate books and copyright all the DB's then they pretty much owns us.
But I browsed the bill (Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act) and, section 5 says:
IANAL, but doesn't 5.a.1.A and
668.5
they would have to prove that you did. Just as difficult.
Not if they have a couple orders of magnitude more money to spend on legal representation than you have.
Simple solution:
File a copyright registration of your
name, address, phone number, any other information.
Sue any buisness that contacts you for violation of your copyright information.
The big database makers will probably include a random selection of fake entries in their databses. If your database is caught with copies of these faked entries, it proves that you did not compile the data yourself.
As far as safe level of copying of someone elses data, the original owner probably only needs to prove that they were somehow harmed by your copy, or that you took too much of their info, or that what you took constitutes too large a fraction of your work. And if you made any money on the copy, you are almost certainly infringing. At least that is my lay-person (not lawyer-person) understanding of infringement for traditional copyright.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I have compiled list of days in a week with great effort. The list starts with Monday and ends with Sunday. If you want to use create a calendar that lists these names, you need to pay me. While I'm at it, I'm working on number 1-31.
I think people have missed a possible use of this that benefits the public, and the very reason why companies like AT&T oppose this bill...
This would make it legal to copyright collections of personal data. Copyright protections also extend to derivative works of existing copyrighted material (which in this case means subsets and/or the addition of other information).
How does this benefit the average Joe? Simple. Take every bit of personal information you can think of, stick it into a database, and file for a copyright on it. Poof, you've just made every company out there trying to gather data on you guilty of a copyright violation for which you can sue them (and theoretically win, if the courts don't consider this as yet another law that only benefits corporations). And, as a bonus, the courts take copyright violations for monetary gain FAR more seriously than just coincidental violations, so companies selling your (copyrighted) personal information between each other commit an even more serious offense.
Sweet. Consider this my notification to the world that I have just compiled such a collection, and consider it copyrighted.
You said:
now the gathering of what can be defined as public knowledge can be protected by the IP vultures.
The bill says:
(a) INDEPENDENTLY GENERATED OR GATHERED INFORMATION- This Act shall not restrict any person from independently generating or gathering information obtained by means other than extracting it from a database generated, gathered, or maintained by another person and making that information available in commerce.
And for the record, neither the submitter nor michael RTFB either, because it's being misrepresented. But this is nothing new for michael.
Nothing new here :-(.
. html
Copyright law has been extending its domain since its inception. This process has been driven by corporate interests -- not, as the RIAA would have you believe, by creators and artists trying to "protect their rights".
If, even after the RIAA lawsuits and now this, you still think that copyright is basically a socially good idea that just gets taken too far sometimes, please see
http://www.red-bean.com/kfogel/writings/copyright
for a possibly eye-opening history (and a blueprint for change).
Best,
-Karl
http://www.red-bean.com/kfogel
I have seen this "is it good or is it whack" meme all over the place and I've checked google for it too. What does it mean? Where did it come from?
I'm serious... this isn't just a play on the same joke or whatever the hell it is.
Actually already has your stats in a database. Their lawyers will be contacting you shortly :-)
OpenOffice tips:richhillsoftware.com
Read the _____ bill. There seems to be a pretty high burden of proof, the republication must be "quantitatively substantial," and the information must be "time sensitive," having "temporal value."
Let me preface this by stating that I am no lawyer; nor am I a post-graduate law student. What I'm offering is merely the interpretation that I took away from reading the Act legislation.
For those with tin-foil or aluminium-foil hats, you can take them off for this one. As far as I was able to figure out, government, education, and non-profit databases are not covered under this Act.
The Act does, however, appear to cover IP tables and databases of any kind involving activity by IP address... meaning that the RIAA and MPAA cannot simply grab an activity log organized by IP address, or an IP address database organized by user/name, without first obtaining written permission by the ISP or a subpeona from a court. (I am unsure if this actually changes much, if anything, if it's redundant, or if it's just putting specific coverage under Federal law.)
For the most part, it looks like this law applies to corporate databases and little to nothing else. Freedom of the press, the Act providing for government transparency (I cannot recall the name of the Act at this time), and previous communication laws still apply. Further, it seems to me that the Act sets up coverage for scholarly or educational access to databases within a certain, unspecified, level; it leaves the determination of that level to the courts.
I haven't read any of the previous communication acts, but it looks to me that the only negative side-effect of this Act would be regional (or national) monopolies on phonebooks. Since, at the places I've lived, at least, phonebooks tend to be distributed without charge to the individual, it's only a matter of information accuracy and phonebook advertisements.
I suggest that EVERYONE read the Act for themselves, but it doesn't seem to me like it's something to go grey over or spike aluminum foil manufacturers stock prices.
~UP
Eat the Path.
I need to know what sort of letter to write my representative.
If's kind of like Congress deciding that Purple Things need to be protected from being copied, regardless of whether any existing protections applied or not. Even if Purple Things were copyable under previous law, Congress could pass new law saying they no longer are. (Subject to the Constitution, of course.)
Even if this were about amending copyright law instead of creating a new class of protected works, prior case law has no binding effect on Congress, which has complete authority to ignore case law if it wants. (The courts are the ones bound by case law.)
Actually already has your stats in a database. Their lawyers will be contacting you shortly :-)
;-)
Ah, but I've thoughtfully included tracer-data (y'know, like they do on maps, where you have a fake town appearing so they can prove someone stole their work if that same place appears on someone else's map)... Ask 27 different companies my email address, and you'll get 27 different answers. And if you get less than 27, I can track which company(ies) not only infringed on my own data, but sold it to someone else.
that is bull
... oh yes, thats right. how can we forget they trade votes
i could write your number down and be sued for not having a license for it
i could be sued for having my own information written on a webpage
wtf is wrong with those idiots. im going to copyright their information and sue them
that eliminates the ability to make copies. what if i was searching on the internet and wanted to write down a bunch of numbers
and say "i reconmend these businesses"
thats totally legitamate and a dispicable circumstance to be taken advantage of
ok and then.. i want to make my own mapping software.. so i compile a list of every mailing address in miami
not to spam them with junk mail but for research
now that , the phone companies can sue me for this??
its basically saying you can claim ownership on facts whoever submits them to the government first, which in that case, who gets first dibbs ?
its an attempt by the phone companies to monopolize the business of phone listings
i think that defeats the entire system of copyright
its like giving copyright holders totalitarian authority over how the copyrightten material can be used
eliminates fair use
they want to stop search engines like google from indexing their site
but thats no different from a human acting as a search engine. its dictatorship
saying who can and cant access the writing
"ill sue you for memorizing my webpage!!!"
it specifically says telephone. bellsouth has our congress man in their pocket
they gave him something like $20,000 or more for his campaign
diaz-balart. this district is screwed
is anybody willing to try to bring formal charges to a congressman for selling out like that?
and make it sorta legally blonde 2 ish
but actually publically embarass a representative for doing what everyone hates when they take a single vote over more than what the
so he gets reelected for fillabusting another bill in order to get a district who doesnt oppose the bill
there should be public oversight of congress
You would presumably place a copyright trap in your database.
Map makers, form companies, and the like are known to insert intentional errors in their maps in order to prevent somebody who has copied their information from claiming that the information was gathered independently.
bring in a backpack stove, a pot, water and a thermometer and prove them wrong. How can an accuser appeal that.
By having such evidence thrown out on a technicality, that you didn't follow proper judicial procedure because you don't know judicial procedure, and you don't have enough money to hire someone who does (that is, an attorney). Would Nolo's books help?
Feist absolutely does not say that compilations of facts are not copyrightable.
I promise. Go and read it. Feist says a couple things. For purposes of this thread it says that the white pages does not have a sufficient level of originality or creativity to rise to copyrightable level. The originality or creativity spoken of for factual compilations would be in their selection, coordination, or arrangement.
From the headnotes in the link you provided:
Compilations of facts are copyrightable if they attain a certain threshold of originality in their arrangement. If a compilation reaches this level and attains copyright, however, the facts themselves are not copyrighted.
I haven't read the new bill linked to in the original post and have no comment on how it treats protection of facts... the point of this post is just to point out a misunderstanding of what Feist stands for.
The key term here is "making available in commerce...." Translation: only for something you can sell.
But, if you want to use a commercial database for your own personal use, educational use, certain kinds of research, etc. you can do it without getting your arse sued to hades.
~UP
Eat the Path.
You can't protect a data scheme like this. If someone were to alphabetize a product and make it searchable, anyone else with a similar scheme could sue. What isn't talked about either is that people can make lists of items, which form a standard. They can copyright it and hold it forever just about. Imagine what that would do to software development!
You feel that? Its called oppression.
I have just finished my database with every word in every human language. Therefore any speech written words would be considered a subset of my database. I am charging $1.00 per word. And before everyone goes out and learns German to cut down on royalty fees, just know that German words cost $1.50 since half of them a compound words (blitzkrieg). If you all persist in speaking, I will smite you with a massive media campaign featuring myself talking about the evils of language piracy. Below is an excerpt: "You know. You spend hours compiling lists of known words and then someone comes along, opens their mouth, and utters a few sounds and they reap all that benefit"
If you mod me down, I shall become less powerful than you could possibly imagine.
RMS makes ridiculous prediction, people laugh. Then it happens, except in 5 years instead of the predicted 50.
"H.R. 3261 goes to great lengths to create incentives for the development of new information products while making certain that libraries, archives and educational institutions are not adversely affected."
If I read this right, one of the bill's intent is to limit the locations where information can be accessed freely. This "centralization" of access, makes it much easier to monitor who accesses what and when. Libraries are no longer the main informational source they once were. This may bring them back into the spotlight, but laws passed in recent years have not favored the anonymity of patrons in libraries. If lawmakers or those who control them feel threatened by an informed public, this is certainly a clever way to monitor what the public accesses in order to inform itself. Those who control the flow of information, control those who need that information. In this case, that would be the public. This is not good.
= 9J =
How does this benefit the average Joe? Simple. Take every bit of personal information you can think of, stick it into a database, and file for a copyright on it.
It's not a copyright; people can't copy your database, but they can independently collect the information. Even if that weren't true, do you think that a court would let your trick work? Or that even if they did, Congress would let it stand? The number of buisness that would have to change their patterns would be huge.
Limiting the rights of people, including daily practice, further reduces the american Social Atmosphere, it does this:
- Hurts Business
- which Hurt People
- which further increases Poverty
- which further enriches the few Rich People
IMHO, Bills like this are entirely in the interest of business, and will reduce the number of entrepreneurs due to fear of getting sued.
to refresh my gradeschool education i thought i'd seach for how a bill becomes a law.
the only thing that strikes me is that the judiciary branch is only consulted after the law has passed, and then only if a case is brought to court. until the law is challenged in court, it seems no one gives a rats ass if it is Constitutional or not.
There is a reason I no longer recognize such laws....
=(
!@#$% i am now officially an 'anarchist'...why, because I think it's become saner than 'beaucracy'
Or, conversely, all those companies out there that have *your* personal information in *their* database can now claim copyright on information about *you*!
So, how does one publically protest/demonstrate against this law? By burning telephone books?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
sure..if you're a left-wing liar making up crap...
whoops, forgot...slashdot
carry on...
a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y, z.
Copyright me, 2004.
I'm suing the whole of slashdot for reproducing my work. Or... you could each pay me 1 per letter.
Thank you very much for your time, you will all be reembursed 0.01 for your troubles in removing all said letters from everything you've ever written.
It'd make it an even more interesting talking point for RMS.
The First Ammendment is in effect when the copyright clause is not. Congress should know this, but we all know they aren't too bright :)
I know this is off topic but this quote struck me as disproving SCO's argument that copyright is all about a profit motive:
"The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but "[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." Art. I, 8, cl. 8. Accord, Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken, 422 U.S. 151, 156 (1975). To this end, copyright assures authors the right to their original [499 U.S. 340, 350] expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work."
is that Amazon.com is opposing the bill. It's great to see that Amazon.com is continuing their stellar practice of vigilantly opposing intellectual property abuse.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
Write to your representative. Chances are they won't be hearing much from anyone on this bill, so just a few letters from constituants may be significantly pursuasive.
.... "abridging the freedom of speech"
... To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
Here's mine:
Representative Walden,
Please oppose H.R. 3261, the "Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act". It is an unconstitutional violation of free speech. Passing this bill will only cause unnecessary litigation and expense and, in its disposal, consume the valuable resources of our high courts.
The primary purpose of this bill is laid out in Section 3, point a. It prohibits the "making available in commerce" a "substantial part" of a database made by another person. The offending section is included below for your convenience. This prohibits commercial, or profitable, speech when it contains a large portion of another person's database. This violates the freedom of speech laid out in the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution:
"Congress shall make no law"
It is permissible for congress to pass laws which infringe on freedom of speech only in a few very specific instance, such as against traitorous speech, and the exceptions of Article 1, Section 8, Line 1, which establish the power of congress to implement copyrights and patents.
From Article 1, Section 8:
The Congress shall have power
This power is granted to congress to encourage authors and inventors, and by extension musicians, artists, and filmmakers, by granting them exclusive rights to their works for a limited time. This exclusive right to the work violates the freedom of speech of others, but is explicitly allowed to encourage art and technology. By precedent, it has two requirements, originality and creativity; the author must be the origin of the work, and it must require some step of creativity to produce it.
Individual facts, like telephone numbers, sizes of stars, or names for babies, are not original. A database, or collection, of these is original in so far as the author's chose which pieces of information to include. Historically, the US Supreme Court agrees, as shown in the case of FEIST PUBLICATIONS, INC., v. RURAL TELEPHONE SERVICE CO., INC., quoted here from Syllabus, point a:
(a) Article I, 8, cl. 8, of the Constitution mandates originality as a prerequisite for copyright protection. The constitutional requirement necessitates independent creation plus a modicum of creativity. Since facts do not owe their origin to an act of authorship, they are not original and, thus, are not copyrightable. Although a compilation of facts may possess the requisite originality because the author typically chooses which facts to include, in what order to place them, and how to arrange the data so that readers may use them effectively, copyright protection extends only to those components of the work that are original to the author, not to the facts themselves. This fact/expression dichotomy severely limits the scope of protection in fact-based works. Pp. 344-351.
Representative Walden, please help keep our already overrun legal system and high courts clear from unnecessary litigation; oppose H.R.3261. Please dispose of this ill-conceived bill now, before our it causes our nation, its corporations, and its individuals great expense of disposing of it later.
Thank you very much for your time and consideration,
Your concerned constituent,
Cedric A. Shock
H.R.3261
Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act
SEC. 3. PROHIBITION AGAINST MISAPPROPRIATION OF DATABASES.
(a) LIABILITY- Any person who makes available in commerce to others a quantitatively substantial part of the information in a database generated, gathered, or maintained by another person, knowing t
well i think the thing to do is to come up with a database which holds pretty much every fact that can be come across. put that database in the hands of the FSF, then have them sue a few high-profile people. if the FSF (for example) sued a couple congressmen for (for example) dialing a phone number or (for example) going to a webpage, then the law might "change back" pretty quck (which of course would be the whole point).
i imagine something like this: "your honor, we alledge that the defendant, Ms. Congresswoman, used what she called an 'address book' to keep lists of her friends and their contact information, which is in clear infringement of our database of phone numbers and addresses".
hell. just have CmdrTaco copyright the database which drives Everything2 and suddenly he'd be king of the world!
question: would the DNS databases be copyrightable? imagine the royalties that could be charged for the right to mirror the information which drives the entire internet.
You think congress would make a law that benifited voters as opposed to donors? Remember, we're consumers, not constituents. bah.
...in a non-original way, the copyright no longer applies, according to your logic if my understanding is correct. What if the "innovative and creative" arrangement of a work merely mirrors the actual relationship between the data elements? Name Age SSN Address DLNO What exactly is the "unique" relationship involved? The only uniqueness here is the specific set of records that one company has grouped together. Delete or add one and we're talking philosophical "is the river the same river" type questions...
Elsevier: Mr. Russell, I sue you for quoting my copyrighted database.
B. Russell: Oh, I see, you claim to be the copyright holder. Do you have proof?
Elsevier: Easy. Here is the relevant quote from the U.S. copyright registry...
B. Russell: Gotcha! You can't do that! :-)
Did anyone on Slashdot actually RTFB (Read the fucking bill?)
SEC. 4. PERMITTED ACTS.
(a) INDEPENDENTLY GENERATED OR GATHERED INFORMATION- This Act shall not restrict any person from independently generating or gathering information obtained by means other than extracting it from a database generated, gathered, or maintained by another person and making that information available in commerce.
Basically, that says that you can have the exact same DB as someone else, so long as you collected the information yourself. I'm sure AT+T didn't like the bill because it means that they can't copyright the phone book, even if they wanted to.
Well, let's see ... "the term `database' means a collection of a large number of discrete items of information produced for the purpose of bringing such discrete items of information together in one place or through one source so that persons may access them." Please twist.
The Ezine Directory
All Your Database Are Belong to Us!
I'll just keep my personal information stored in a MySQL database on my desktop machine. That way, I can sue any marketers who use that information without buying a $1,000,000 license.
Sounds like this would make it possible for a retailer to copyright the information contained in weekly flyers and prohibit places like fatwallet.com from listing them.
This could have a possibly monstrous effect on online comparison shopping. Things like www.froogle.com become impossible as retailers begin copyrighting their inventory and price databases.
-dameron
Let's say that I create a database that takes non-trivial effort to create. And let's say that the only sources of data that I use are readily available to others. Now you're telling me that the only protection I've got for that database is trade secret? What if I want to let the public access the database, via the Web or whatever? Oops, there goes the trade secret.
Let me give you a couple examples from history. Roget's Thesaurus was basically the dictionary, re-indexed. Young's Concordance was a list of all words in the King James Bible, stating in which passage each word appeared (giving a few words of context), and what the original Greek or Hebrew word was for the English word. Both Roget and Young spent a significant amount of effort on these (at a rough guess, 10 to 20 years, which makes it pretty close to the life work of each man.) Both were published as books. And, if I understand correctly, both were copyrighted under the then-existent laws. Both these books were essentially "databases on paper".
It seems to me that this bill is just extending the same protection to electronic databases that they would have if the same information was published in a dead-tree version. I don't see what's so horrible about it.
Artistic merit? You're telling me that only works that have artistic merit get copyright protection? How much "artistic merit" does the dictionary have? It's copyrighted. For that matter, how about the POSIX spec? Artistic merit? Don't make me laugh. But it's copyrighted.
Y'know, sometimes the general lack of knowledge about and understanding of priciples of copyright law on Slashdot makes me irritable and upset. This is one of them.
Take every bit of personal information you can think of, stick it into a database, and file for a copyright on it. Poof, you've just made every company out there trying to gather data on you guilty of a copyright violation for which you can sue them
Simply replicating a piece of information does not constitute a copyright violation. You have to demonstrate that the copy was DIRECTLY DERIVED FROM your original. Did the company access your database server to get their copy of your information? If not, your allegations of copyright violation won't get very far.
Here's a sentence I just made up: "I do not like them." This same sentence happens to appear in Dr. Seuss' book, "Green Eggs and Ham", but does that mean I've violated Seuss' copyright by typing that sentence? No more than a company that gets your name and address from somewhere is guilty of violating the copyright on your imaginary database.
Since the RIAA Radar www.magnetbox.com uses the Amazon database, could they technically be sued for use of the database and forced to close down? Probably a far out conspiracy theory, but I'm interested if this might have been a potential cause behind the creation of the law. But then again, I didn't RTFA, so I could be wrong. It wouldn't be too hard for the RIAA to pressure Amazon into copyrighting their database, and suing the RIAA Radar as they mostly carry RIAA Affiliated music.
We all can make a small database containing just our information and then copyright it....this way, we have a legal standing to sue other companies that use our info (like spammers and telemarketers, etc.)
So now that leaves me wondering if I should publish a database of all of the pertinant facts about myself, and use it to sue Spammers, Telemarketers, etc.
For what it's worth, not that I support this bill, but it does make exception for research (as does normal copyright, in general).
Also, as far as enforcement goes, it should only be reasonable to sue someone if you can prove you ripped off their info. That would generally involve ripping off a good portion of a database.
That said, as has already been mentioned, I don't trust the bastards. Also, I don't like the idea of extending copyright to something with no creative content.
Finally, this should be something solved through contracts between the database owners and those to whom they license/lease/sell the information.
This could be entirely possible, and might deal a huge blow to the anti-RIAA efforts that are going around currently. I have plenty of friends that use the RIAA Radar when making a choice in purchasing music. This could very well be a possibility.
Because there are companies out there that spend a lot of time and effort and money gathering information and providing that information to the public, for a fee. See Feist v. Rural Telecom (sorry for missing link. Just google it). It's called business. If company A can't get a fee, they're not gonna be there to provide the information. If company B can come along, copy the database (at a tenth of the cost of the original company), and provide that to the public for half the fee ... guess what? Company A won't get it's fee, so it won't gather the data in the first place. Nobody gathers the data. No data for you, even if you think it's worth the fee.
(and no sig for you)
copy right ... this means you can't patent it ?
isn't this a good thing if so?
I'm going to make a database with my personal info and copyright it. That way, if any company misuses the information they accumulated from me, I can sue. Wait...I live in Canada...
DO NOT WRITE IN THIS SPACE
okBut information can't remain free, not if the status quo is to be maintained. So multinationals and rich dickheads now struggle for control of all information, relying on the apathy of the general public to let them. And sure enough, the general public watches these things happen with no more than a shrug and a 'but what can I do?' attitude. While the pocket-politicians recklessly pass these insane, freedom-restricting laws.
Next, the government will stop funding libraries, claiming the internet has made them obsolete, much book burning will ensue (get your genuine Library of Congress fire logs, while quantities last!), and then these copyright laws can rip all useful info from said internet. Leaving the unsuspecting public with the advernet.
*adjusts tin-foil hat*
Oh yeah, and as for phone books - most phone companies put in bogus names/numbers throughout the white pages to prevent 3rd parties from blindly copying...which means a 3rd party has to do their own compilation anyway, else they'll prove their own plagiarism by republishing that bogus info.
Could a DNS zone be give "copyright-like protection"?
The link in the parent is something *everyone* needs to read. Can't give it any more ringing endorsement than that.
--AC
In the US they never have been, and shouldn't be. Listing factual information about when television shows will broadcast should not under any circumstances be copyrightable--it's just factual information.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I'm very disgusted at the United States right now, and all they've screwed up with. Next year, if Kerry doesn't become president, I'm moving to Japan. Anyone coming with me?
I guess I am confused. Exactly how does one go about constructing a "database" of data without taking on enormous risk that someone else (individual or corporation) has a "similar" data set? And doesn't that just set up a whole new domain of "implied threat litigation"?
Man, the I am really getting torqued off at all the consequences of attempting to equate "idea ownership" with "physical property ownership".
Grrr...I think things are just going to continue to get more complex and confusing (and frustrating for actual inventive types) in this area.
Jim O'Flaherty
THE Private Pilot Adventure Guide
The sky is not falling!
This law simply let's you sue someone if:
1. you spend time and effort collecting a database
2. you market that database and somehow earn money for marketing it
3. someone else copies a chunk of your database
4. that someone makes that chunk available to your customers
5. you lose money because of # 4
6. you are NOT THE GOVERNMENT
7. that someone else is NOT A SCIENTIST or REPORTER acting appropriately
8. you can PROVE all of the above
If you read the linked articles, you'll see that the biggest discussed objection to this law is that it may not be necessary because you can already sue if someone does the above. The Commerce Department says it's a matter of contract law. When you make your database available, you make the customer agree not to sell copies of it. But the fact is, they're wrong. That's what happened in Feist v. Rural Telephone Service Company. Feist wanted Rural's telephone book data so they copied it and provided a competing telephone book. The Supreme Court said Rural can't use copyright to sue, and they were right for saying so, but then Rural was SOL.
Thus, any company that spends time/effort/money collecting useful data in hopes of making some profit is also potentially SOL if someone else copies it and sells it for cheaper. This new law is intended to encourage companies to collect data and make it available. What's wrong with that?
The big question for me is why do Google and Yahoo oppose it. My guess is that they're afraid of inadverdently violating it because they try to collect all the data on the web. What if a company creates a collection of data, but then anyone can get to it through Google? I assume there are ways to shut out Google, but not the public?
You don't claim copyright on the information, you claim copyright on the collection as an entity. If someone else collects data from sources other than your database, they cannot possibly infringe on your copyright. So this won't work.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
Well, I guess smoking crack - or a mixture of crack, heroin and others must be available to DC representatives. Might as well outsource the whole Internet outside of the US to avoid politicians and lawyers.
A collection of previously un-copyrightable associations between names and some data is now a copyrightable item.
So If SCO can claim the original ownership due to first "collection" of say
#define EPERM 1
#define ENOENT 2
and so on, then SCO suddenly can find that errno.h is a copyright violation of System-V code in Linux, where there was none before. It is not the file "errno.h"; Linus can state under oath that his is an independant creation. But now the Database itself contained in the file is copyrighted... Just what Darl is trying to claim.
I don't think that this needs the tinfoil hat. This is way too subtle for Darl.
Not surprisingly, the top four economies of the next 50 years (Brazil, Russia, India, China) do not have the anti-competitive intellectual property laws of the US (and the EU).
The new databaes law joins software patents (i.e. patents on ideas) on the list of top business killers. Software patents, of course, are a guarantee to make sure no individuals or small businesses can compete with the big corporations. As small tech businesses are an important part of the foundation of the US economy, one can expect the US economy to continue its decline.
This new law is a leading indicator that America is killing its own economy faster than anyone could have anticipated. The so-called "land of opportunity" will soon be no more real than a Hollywood movie.
You have to demonstrate that the copy was DIRECTLY DERIVED FROM your original. Did the company access your database server to get their copy of your information? If not, your allegations of copyright violation won't get very far.
Thanks to the music industry, we have a precedent for the idea of "passive" infringement - If a musician produces something that sounds like a pre-existing song, the mere fact that they might have heard the preexisting song counts as sufficient proof that they copied it, if subconsciously. Why would that not apply to this, assuming I make my database available somehow (such as putting it on a webpage)?
but does that mean I've violated Seuss' copyright by typing that sentence?
A very reasonable chance exists that any English-speaking person could come up with that phrase without having read any Dr. Seuss. Could you say the same for my social security number? My favorite beer? My annual income for the past decade? I think not.
You have to demonstrate that the copy was DIRECTLY DERIVED FROM your original
As I mentioned to someone else in this thread, every company that has "my" email address has a different one, by which I can not only prove it came from me - How do you "independantly" get a bogus email address that contains a hash (the exact nature of which I have never disclosed to anyone) allowing me to relate it back to the company in question?
For "real" facts, like 2+2=4, I would tend to agree with you. Personal data, however, cannot come from anywhere but me, originally. Without me, it simply doesn't exist.
So, this means we should go around modeling anything and everything now, before the law passes.. so we can have prior art?
meh
I'm going to copyright my phone number and sue any politician who calls me!
(they're currently excluded from the Do Not Call list)
The least lauded but biggest (IMHO) problem is one of provenance. A listing of facts, and another listing of the same facts, will be "identical" for the facts listed. Even if these facts are "independently gathered" if both efforts are done with the same dilligence it would be impossible to tell them apart. Consequently you encourage people to come to court and say "they must have stolen this from me... look, it's identical." So by definition there is no way to prove, or even pursuasively demonstrate that accurate data *ISN'T* coppied.
Further, many facts only have one source. Consider the much-harped-uppon phone book example. The phone company has the only authoratative list of name to number tuples. Any "gathering" must come from that source. Therefore acquiring any list of phone numbers by any means other than going around and asking the subscribers individually, must have this list as its root. (or ibid for the Dept of Licensing lists etc.)
"Quantitatively substantial" is never defined ore even hinted at. is this "ten percent", "more than three", "exactly enough to serve any useful purpose". It's all quite litigation-lawyer friendly.
Finally, there is nothing in the definitions to differentiate between "what we all know me mean when we say 'Database'" (big "D") and any of the technical definitons of a compilation of data. It only has to be numerous and discrete. A FAT32 file system with a directory full of memos is, in this definition, a fully covered "database". So lots of non common-usage-database items "suddenly" become this other thing. Again, quite litigation-lawyer friendly, but no so good for any other person. The porn purveyors will be happy, as a directory full of naked men jpgs is a database here.
IMHO this law doesn't add a blessed thing but the opportunity to make things muddy and dificult for American Business.
Consequently, you people in the EU and such should expect, and damn soon, lots of lobbying from Americans to get your respective regions equally infected as soon as people here realize what a mistake this law was.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Let's disassemble the Bill, shall we ?
So we have (1) Collective Work which includes anthologies and encyclopedias and (2) Compilations which are definied in a way that you could take ANYTHING into a compilation, as long as you can demostrate it constitutes an "original work of authorship". Who has the burden of proof of demostrating originality, and what does "original" and "work of authorship" mean exactly ?
About (5) Database we have this definition "collection of a large number of discrete items of information" with noticeable exceptions: an anthology or encyclopedia or collective work or a routing table or a domain name registrar database are NOT databases, with an exception within exception that IF a domain registrar database is 1. maintained accurate and up-to-date 2. and accessible in real time to public without restrictions (which means FOR FREE) THEN it IS a protected database.
(8) INFORMATION- The term `information' means facts, data, works of authorship, or any other intangible material capable of being generated or gathered. seems a little wide as well.
We got some potential problem on (C) DISCRETE SECTIONS- The fact that a database is a subset of a database shall not preclude such subset from treatment as a database under this Act which is VERY arguable because the law doesn't tell us exactly WHAT a subset of a collection is with respect to this law, yet it protects the subset "as if" it was a collection, neither does the law define what is a "discrete item of information".
So let's imagine a collection of statistics on businesses (for instance, quarterly sales) in which the information is presented as follows: COMPANYNAME,Quarter,year,valueofsales. Let's say Micro$oft,4th,2005,$0 ; this is a subset of a larger database and a further subset of subset is Micro$oft,$0. If transitive rule applies, if a subset of a set is protected, then a subset of a subset is protected as well as a database (!!) so that even this little subset can qualify as a protected subset of a database. I guess it is left to the better judgment of the judge to decide what is a subset and what is not , which can quickly become HELL or HEAVEN depending ultimately (I guess)on Supreme Court. Even the knowledge that the name Micro$oft is included in a particular database can qualify as a subset if, for instance, it is followed by some special sign or fictious name which is an element of a database as well, so two elements of a database may be considered as a subset of a database and be protected ; this is left to the JUDGE I guess.
The (a) LIABILITY says that a person is liable if he makes avaiable in commerce "a quantitatively substantial part of the information in a database " which is very vague. It doesn't talk about subsets of database, but about information and leaves to the judge to decide what is quantitatively substantial part of information.
Again let's take the sales database example again with the Micro$oft,4th,2005,$0 subset. With attention to quantity the judge may consider one line out of 10 billions lines absolutely insignificant ; but it becomes more significant
if I restrict the size of database, for example, to all the companies beginning with the letters MICRO ; with attention to the information, the problem becomes even more complex as the mere presence of Micro$oft name in a database can be seen as information.
And to the end the
SEC. 4. PERMITTED ACTS.
(a) INDEPENDENTLY GENERATED OR GATHERED INFORMATION- This Act shall not restrict any person from independently generating or gathering information obtained by means other than extracting it from a database generated, gathered, or maintained by another person and making that information available in commerce
Who has got the burden of proving that the information was copied and not gathered ? The plaintiff will accuse the defendant of copying the information (or a subset of database) _hopefully_ by not merely mentioning the presence
of the information in his
I work for a company that compiles information about the ocean floor. We sell that information in databases to end-users, and technically there is no protection to us beyond what encryption provides (little to none). Traditionally, "sweat of the brow" is not copyrightable, and this leaves us open to theft of our work. So I don't see this as all bad.
I have here a table which is a definitive compilation of all the integers from -1048576 to 1048576. Everyone who wants to use any one of them has to pay me.
I'M RICH I TELLS YA! RICH! AHA HAHHA HA HA HAHAHA HH AHHA!!
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Actually,
This law by itself does little (maybe nothing) to ultimately protect the databases for which it is designed to copyright.
This does not change the fact that our "Law to the highest bidder" legislature, is quickly accreting a body of law, that fundamentally alters the nature of copyright and Intellectual Property. By treating information as commodity, by treating organization of information as commodity, we begin to institutionalize the process by which all knowledge might be owned, controlled, and dispensed at will and whim of a powerful few.
These laws are like threads, and as the fabric becomes woven, it begins to define a context. The laws currently being struck, give corporations the right, the power, and the weapons to own information in all it's forms, dispense that information as it sees fit, and levy punitive damage to anybody who does not comply with the said use of knowledge that has become corporate property.
In the end, this allows that powerful few to control the free exchange of ideas. This is fundamentally and inexorably contrary to freedom, and our form of government. When the greater body of words and ultimately ideas, can be controlled, restricted, charged payment for, and used to manage people and their societies... we will all have become the slaves of those who would own the truth.
Genda Bendte
-- "Those who would trade a little liberty for a little wealth, will lose both and deserve neither"
Actually, as long as they don't copy that information FROM YOUR DATABASE, they don't have to worry about it. They will still be able to collect your information the same ways they always have.
This bill cannot help you.
Just filled in the e-mail form to the Honorable Martin Olav Sabo, my House Representative:
Please oppose H.R. 3261, the Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act.
It seems to me there is a massive land-grab going on in the world of ideas; that vested interests are trying to make every possible communication or bit of data into "intellectual property" they can own and charge for. This bill is a part of that trend, and does the general public no good.
I agree with Mark Erickson, the director of NetCoaltion, who says this bill will "inevitably lead to the growing monopolization of the marketplace of ideas". It's hard for me to see how it could have any other purpose, since the important things that would be protected by this bill are already protected by current law.
-- Only unbalanced people can tip the scales.
If I were to bet, my bet would be that this has something to do with copyright and intellectual property. If someone comes up with something, a database of catalogued somethings that constitute prior art would kill off new patents. Making people unable to determine if there is prior art (outside of official government hands) is illegal. Now someone can say "I one 1". Any time you try to do 1+2=3, I get royalties because I own 1. Danm you say, I have this old math book --which constitutes a database. Illegal! (Note: there is an index and page numbers, so this is an indexed database). Man, my tin foil hat fits snug!
well, if it is things like address and phone then I "own" it if anyone. If someone makes a compilation then the compilation would seem to be a cross between a derived work and permitted personal info publication. I suppose it could be argued that if I want to make an index, then I can dang well go on and get the info myself that is more than just copy and paste from another index... unless I payed for that service.
It seems like I could copyright my name, address
telephone number, and shopping habits.
That means any other company would have to license
from me the right to include me in their database.
Doesnt that sound right?
If I compile a database of Congressional votes on legislation, and copyright it, can't I stop journalists from infringing by reporting those facts? Is this law creating some kind of "official truth" monopoly?
--
make install -not war