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."

Comments

Re:Notice that law isn't exempt

[zulux]

It looks like standard-codes adopted by governemt can be copied due to a recent court ruling: more info

Re:Notice that law isn't exempt

[ichimunki]

If any of you ever bothered to RTFL(egislation), you'd have found this:

SEC. 5. EXCLUSIONS.

(a) GOVERNMENT INFORMATION-

(1) IN GENERAL- Except as provided in paragraph (2), protection under this Act shall not extend to--

(A) a database generated, gathered, organized, or maintained by a Federal, State, or local governmental entity, or by an employee or agent of such an entity, acting within the scope of such employment or agency; or

(B) a database generated, gathered, or maintained by an entity pursuant to and to the extent required by a Federal statute or regulation requiring such a database.

I leave it up to the reader to determine to what extent this protects various statute databases and other privately created systems housing purely public domain governmental data.

Re:Notice that law isn't exempt

[Short Circuit]

definately. Look at 6.b.1...it declares that..

(b) PREEMPTION OF STATE LAW-

(1) LAWS REGULATING CONDUCT THAT IS SUBJECT OF THE ACT- On or after the effective date of this Act, no State statute, rule, regulation, or common law doctrine that prohibits or otherwise regulates conduct that is the subject of this Act shall be effective.

Dear God...look at 7.c.2, 7.c.2.b, 7.c.2.g.

And 7.d:

(d) IMPOUNDMENT- At any time while an action under this section is pending, including an action seeking to enjoin a violation, the court may order the impounding, on such terms as it deems reasonable, of all copies of contents of a database made available in commerce or attempted to be made available in commerce potentially in violation of section 3, and of all masters, tapes, disks, diskettes, or other articles by means of which such copies may be reproduced. The court may, as part of a final judgment or decree finding a violation or attempted violation of section 3, order the remedial modification or destruction of all copies of contents of a database made available in commerce or attempted to be made available in commerce in violation of section 3, and of all masters, tapes, disks, diskettes, or other articles by means of which such copies may be reproduced.

IANAL, but That looks like it means they can impound anything that could possibly have a copy of the said material on it. Meaning, every computer, floppy and tape in a company.

And here's the punchline: (I'll let you guys play with it. I've got to go home.)

SEC. 10. NONSEVERABILITY.

(a) IN GENERAL- If the Supreme Court of the United States holds that the provisions of section 3, relating to prohibition of misappropriation of databases, are invalid under Article I of, or the First Amendment to, the Constitution of the United States, then this Act is repealed, effective as of the date of the Supreme Court decision.

(b) TERMINATION- Subsection (a) shall cease to be effective at the end of the 10-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act.

fits with corporate-driven history of copyright

[kfogel]

Nothing new here :-(.

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. html

for a possibly eye-opening history (and a blueprint for change).

Best,
-Karl

Re:Notice that law isn't exempt

[ryanjensen]

Note that the law does not protect the individual bits of data in the database, just a "quantitatively substantial part of the information" and only if:

1. the database was generated, gathered, or maintained through a substantial expenditure of financial resources or time;
2. the unauthorized making available in commerce occurs in a time sensitive manner and inflicts injury on the database or a product or service offering access to multiple databases; AND
3. the ability of other parties to free ride on the efforts of the plaintiff would so reduce the incentive to produce the product or service that its existence or quality would be substantially threatened.

Also, a database is defined as "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" ... not each item idividually.

Finally, copying an entry out of an encyclopedia or almanac and passing it off as your own is plagiarism, and should be illegal in my opinion (if it isn't already).

[All italics mine.]

Re:Notice that law isn't exempt

[orthogonal]

Not anymore.

The US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal (warning: pdf) (denied a petition for a writ of certiorari) of the US 5th Circuit's en banc ruling in SOUTHERN BUILDING CODE V. VEECK, PETER that re-decided the 5th Circuit's previous panel decision that affirmed the District Courts's summary judgment in favor of defendant Southern Building Code Congress International Inc, reversing the District Court and remanding the case to it for dismissal of SBCCI's claims.

Or to be less concise:

A three-judge panel, with one judge dissenting, of the 5th Circuit initially found that Souther Building Code Congress International Inc. retained copyright to its codes even though those codes were incorporated by reference in the law of, among other places, two Texas towns, Anna and Savoy. The majority's decison laregly rested on findings of other Circuit Courts, and explcitly said that "We decline to create a circuit split by reaching the opposite conclusion today." The majority's opinion held that the Supreme Court's finding in Banks v. Manchester didn't apply to the controversy at hand.

Then one of the judges of the 5th Circuit asked that the all the judges in the 5th Circuit decide the case -- this is called the circuit sitting en banc -- and a majority of the 5th Circuits judges agreed to hear the case en banc.

The decision of the majority (9-6, with the Chief Judge dissenting) of the entire 5th Cirucit took a diferent view of Banks v. Manchester, and so reversed the Distruct's Court's summary judgment in favor of SBCCI's claim that Veeck had violated SBCCI"s copyright to the building codes at issue, by posting them on his web site.