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Do You Have A License For Those Facts?
spikedvodka writes "Wired is reporting that the "Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act (HR3261)" is under consideration. It passed the house Judiciary Committee, and is on it's way to the Commerce Committee. This bill would allow companies to copyright databases. (Think phone-number databases) and goes directly against the idea that nobody can own a fact." (See this earlier posting.)
Corporations will squeeze every last damn cent they can out of anyone. When will the government stop this capitalism run amok? I'm all for corporations making profits, and the government helping protect this, but what is happening is that the small guy (consumers and small businesses who don't have millions of dollars to blow on lawsuits) gets hurt.
We should be moving toward more open sharing of information, not the opposite. All we'll end up with is a dearth of new knowledge. It will be like pouring hot salt water into the gears; eventually it will rust up and grind to a halt.
As usual, everyone should write to their congress critters and register their opinions.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
It's never safe to assume the courts will do the right thing.
This bill would allow companies to copyright databases and goes directly against the idea that nobody can own a fact." Um sure, just like current copyright law for books goes directly against the idea that nobody can own a word? What planet are you from.
Isn't a phone book a kind of data base?
He also says that despite Kupferschmid's characterization, the bill puts no limit on the amount of information someone needs to take from a database to violate the law.
So if I write down a phone number out of a phone book would I be thrown in a pound me in the ass prison
i am we todd did... i am sofa king we todd did
You protect the DB by not allowing anyone who wants it access. If someone breaks into your computers and takes it, there's laws against computer crimes to cover that.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
I don't see why we need laws to offer you this protection. You can very well enter a contract with anyone who you allow to use your database stating that they are not allowed to resell it, give the info away, etc. You retain complete control. What's wrong with treating "databases" like trade secrets?
Register yourself as a company.
Make a database of your personal information (Name, phone number, address, family history, etc).
Sue other companies for using your "copyrighted data", which is held by your company.
Profit! (For the lawyers anyway)
=Smidge=
I haven't looked at the details of the bill. I am staunch defender of copyleft and I am the first to oppose the current copyright regime. In fact, all of my work is released under a creative commons license.
But, and here's the part where I get sent to burn in karma hell, there are "collections of facts" that should be copyrightable.
Let me give you an example, quality multi-lingual terminological databases and glossaries are multi-year projects that demand a great deal of capital and human labor.
These terms are out there for anyone to do the work and compile them, yet no one will do this kind of tedious and thorough work unless they have a reasonable guarantee of being properly remunerated for their efforts now and into the future.
I would argue that a 10-year copyright period is more than sufficient for this kind of work to thrive.
In an ideal world, universities would band together to create these works and then release them to the public domain, but most universities these days operate as large corporate conglomerates and have very little interest in producing public goods.
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
Most legislatures are made up of at least a plurality, if not a majority of lawyers. And they have, so far, pretty much prevented any real reform in the legal system. In fact, the slower it goes, and the more complicated it gets, the more benefit to the lawyers. If the cases drag for years, they can bill for years.
The entire system needs to be simplified and speedier. It can takes years to get simple cases resolved. Even ones that are downright silly.
But legal reform isn't the only thing needed - the entire federal and state criminal and civil codes need to be re-written and simplified, along with IRS codes, etc, etc. Just think about the time and money wasted because of the foolish complexity of the system. Any party that is truly committed to simplification of the system will get my vote. And neither the GOP nor the Democrats are interested in anything but more complexity - which allows them to help their pet special interests at the expense of the public.
Section. 8.
Clause 8: 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;
How does this advance Arts or Science? It's a real stretch to say that a list of customer data is a Writing or a Discovery.
[
A database can be considered intellectual property and a trade secret without being copyrightable, thereby providing any corporation any legitimate protection they may need.
The catch is as soon as you share, your secret isn't a secret any more, and this is where the corporate money-grubers don' want the the process to stop.
The point that everyone is missing, not helped at all by the article headline, is that this is about databases, not individual facts. Facts will still not be able to be copyrighted, just collections of them. Doesn't make the bill much better, but it's an important distinction.
I think there's a real chance of it being declared unconstitutional, because Congress's authority to issue patents and copyrights is "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." (US Const, Art. 1, s. 8, p. 8) That said, they'll probably just pass it as a law governing interstate commerce.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
I realized some time ago that it'd be relatively trivial for someone to come along and scrape all the URLs I link to, put 'em on a page with a buncha ads, and try to make a buck off stuff I'd spent a lot of time on. But I'm not terribly concerned about it happening. Why?
There's no law saying that database output must be presented in a format that's easy for people to scrape, any more than email addresses.
In a landmark case, the Supreme Court ruled that copyright "rewards originality, not effort." That's the principal that needs to be applied. A publisher may spend a lot of time, effort and money promoting (say) a reprint of a book originally published in 1900, but even if the book practically owes its current existence to their hard work, it is still in the public domain.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
In my opinion, there's only one answer: amend the US Constitution so that Reps and Sens can only serve two terms (like the President) and limit campaign contributions to $100 per person to each candidate in each election. No PACs, no unions, no companies and no churches, only voters can give.
But of course Congress would kill that in a second.
Rome is burning and George II is just playin' the banjo to some corporations music.
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
We must remember that copyrights and patents exist for a single purpose, to foster the growth of knowledge and innovation. There is no abstract "right" for any person to hold a monopoly on ideas or information except as such "rights" foster the growth of knowledge and innovation.
So we must look at this case. Has there been a lack of growth in factual databases due to the inability to profit from them in the same way that, say, the author of a novel can? No, I think not. If then is the case then it seems to undermine the whole enterprise of copyrights and patents altogether. For it seems that if a company can and will go through so much trouble to create a database of phone numbers without any monopoly protection, that lesser efforts will surely happen with or without such protections as well.
So, if these legal monopolies were created for a purpose and they no longer serve to help fulfill that purpose, then what good are they? None at all.
you can probably copyright an organization system, but you can't own a fact. facts are just THERE. "the sky is blue"(r) is not property.
in fact, until there are some competent reviewers, I suspect it would be good if all further patents, copyrights, and laws regarding digital matters just freakin' S T O P.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
So I guess the (high priced) LexisNexis feels threatened by the free information provided by Google et. al.
An encyclopedia site not only could own the historical facts contained in its online entries, but could do so long after the copyright on authorship of the written entries had expired. Unlike copyright, which expires 70 years after the death of a work's author, the Misappropriation Act doesn't designate an expiration date.
Finally we're getting perpetual ownership of information. It's only a matter of time before it gets put into regular copyrights in order to harmonize the laws. Disney's wet dream come true.
Commercial database companies say they invest millions of dollars in collecting, editing and organizing information for their customers, but don't have adequate protection to prevent someone from stealing the information to compete with them.
To me this is the worst possible justification for a new law. No one made them invest millions of dollars.
Yes, and if you read the fine article, it's the collection of facts that is proposed for protection, not the individual facts themselves. Again, I would say that this is fair; putting together a large database is hard work. You're free to create your own database using the same methods, and put it in the public domain. Why should you be free to reproduce someone else's database in its entirety (or a substantial portion) without permission, even if it is a large collection of publicly available knowledge?
WWJD? JWRTFA!
Think a little bit... who can profit of a judgment that permit the copyright of databases?
Lawyers of course!
In america, so called "justice" is a market like everithing else.
"Insanity in individuals is something rare, but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule." - Nietzsche
The point that everyone is missing, not helped at all by the article headline, is that this is about databases, not individual facts
Yes. A good analogy would be an encyclopedia -- each entry is nothing but facts, facts, facts, but they're written in a particular way which itself is copyrightable. You can re-copy the facts, but (barring fair use) not the exact format in which it's written.
A database is very similar: a bunch of facts written to a hard drive in a particular way which is uniquely readable and useful (and marketable).
You can sit at an NBA game and edit your web pages in real time, if you want. You can't slurp Yahoo's NBA page, reformat the text, and place it on your own page for profit. This seems perfectly reasonable to me.
So how do I prove I sat through it and generated the data on my own rather than got it from a copywrited database? If the data is the same (and it should be) it is my word against their's.
Actually no, it isn't. It is their army of lawyers against me, I would be bankrupt before I ever got a chance to get a word in.
Finkployd
This is actually kind of a dumb, extremist reaction to a very useful idea.
First of all, it's not FACTS that are being copyrighted. It's databases. Yes, a database is a collection of facts -- but it's the concept of collection that's being protected here, not the concept of facts.
Think about it this way: you can copyright a guitar riff, but you obviously can't copyright a note. A note is a basic, concrete thing, you can't CREATE a new note. Does this fact bely the creation of original songs? I don't think so...every time music seems stagnant, somebody finds a new way to make it.
In the same way, you can't copyright a word, but you can copyright a book. You can't copyright red, but you can use it in your painting.
The creative act of assembling a database -- and if you don't think it's creative, you've never done it, it takes a TREMENDOUS effort to assemble and maintain a useful data relation even if you're using publically accessible information -- is something that should be protected. It gives data warehousers the same assurance that other content creators receive, so that they can offer access to their systems without worrying about losing the value...something which in my experience has plagued content creators greatly.
In fact, I see no reason why databases can't be fairly used same as any other created work. For example: let's say I run a sports website. If I wrote an editorial, and you wanted to quote a few lines on your own site, you'd be allowed to. But copy all the text and you're in violation of copyright. It'd be the same with databases. Want to quote a sport score or two? No problem, that's fair. Want to present all of yesterday's results? You'd better ask permission or start compiling them yourself. I don't have a problem with this.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
In fact, I see no reason why databases can't be fairly used same as any other created work
You can't??? How about the fact that practically all other creative work is STATIC, and most databases are DYNAMIC??? See the problem now? It's relatively easy to define a copied work of a static object, but how do you define a copy of a dynamic object? It would be a nightmare. This is a serious problem.
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
This bill would allow companies to copyright databases. (Think phone-number databases) and goes directly against the idea that nobody can own a fact.
Let me make this clear: I believe the database bill to be terrible and dangerous legislation. I also believe that the technical community can be instrumental in helping to stop it.
Let me make this clear as well: If the technical community persists in their decade-long strategy of histrionic "chicken-little" screaming every time a bad bill comes out, we will once again see nothing but bad legislation pass.
This is what happened with DMCA, it is what happened with the Patriot Act changes, and it is now happening again with the database bill. Note that the database legislation was originally attached to DMCA, but withdrawn due to excellent lobbying. That can and should happen again, unless we screw up the way we did with DMCA.
Meaningless or false statement (depending how you define terms) such as the ones above serve noone but those who support the bill. The bill does not provide copyright protections (it is a different kind of right, both less and more in different ways), nor does it provide ownership of "facts."
Oh, yes. There are probably rationalizations that foolish people might proffer to defend these remarks, but by the time they have finished confusing those who do not need to be converted, they have long since lost credibility, and the attention of every relevant legislator or person who might otherwise have moved favorably from the fence.
So, please, oh please! STOP THE MADNESS. Remember the line from Apollo 13: "Gentlemen we are not going to do this, we're not going to go bouncing off the walls for ten minutes because were just going to end up right back here with the same problems."
If you are interested in this, and you should be, take the time to read the bill and learn what there is to worry about. Don't oppose it as a knee-jerk, and focus on what is wrong with the bill. Maybe it can be completely defeated, maybe not. But it will never be defeated, and like DMCA, is far more likely to be passed entirely, unless we show an intelligent, balanced and "straight-shooting" front.
The bill needs to be defeated. I assure you that remarks like the foregoing are not the way to do it.
I didn't meant to imply that database creation is creative because it's difficult. I meant that original effort goes into its assembly, and the result of that effort is a often a new creation, even if no visible changes have been made to the original data. It's creative because it takes a basic structure and creates a more complex one with different meaning.
Say I have a list of names , and another list of colours. If I make an association between the names and the colors, I have created something new, even if I didn't create the colors and I didn't create the names. You can now get a list of names that are associated with the color blue. That association is my creation. This new law would say that I own the association. It doesn't say that I own the names and colors.
And as for That said, I think I'd be willing to accept conceptual ownership of data collections provided it came with some responsibilities, mainly, database owners should make (enforceable) promises about the integrity of their data: ownership is not the same as copyright. You don't have to have accurate data to copyright a book...you could copyright a book comprised entirely of lies. Anne Coulter has done it several times. All copyright does is say "I made this. You can make your own, but you can't copy mine unless I say you can." Ownership of data is something completely different...something that's very difficult in a digital environment.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
While the links at the site mentioned are all biased against this legislation, and many of those links provide only knee-jerk, "the sky is falling", "keep your hands off my facts" reactions (e.g. Phyllis Schlafly's) so typical to slashdot responses found here, there is at least one lucid presentation of the situation. Anyone really interested in this topic should at least read William A. Wulf's testimony. He summarizes the problem well. Here's my summary of the problem (not the testimony).
1. NOBODY is trying to COPYRIGHT ANYTHING! NOBODY is trying to OWN FACTS! (Please repeat this to yourself three times before continuing to read anything anywhere)
2. Big database companies (like West) are worried that other companies can slurp up large parts of their data and turn around and sell it. Everyone agrees this is unfair and shouldn't be allowed.
3. Big companies now KNOW that COPYRIGHT DOES NOT PROTECT THEM from situation 2 above because of Feist. (Google it with copyright).
4. Big companies want some law to point to when situation 2 actually happens.
The real problem(s):
a. Situation 2 may not be a real problem. No one has shown that this is actually happening.
b. Big companies (like West) like to sue honest competitors to gain any advantage they can. That's their job. (Google West and Lexis)
c. The new legislation may be addressing a non-problem while facilitating expensive, unnecessary lawsuits designed to harass competition.
d. (The big one for me) The new legislation may chill the activities of companies like Google who might inadvertently become liable.
Hey man, can I bum a sig?
Kind of ironic that his personal quote is "The nation has limited resources that must be used wisely."...
The content (facts) they are selling are court opinions, which are about as far into the public domain as you can get. They add value by correcting judges's mistakes (i.e. in referring to another case) and by adding headings, summaries, cross-references and keywords. It has also been true that some courts have regarded the page numbering in one of the databases (I believe it was WestLaw) as THE way to make references in legal briefs filed before a court. The owners of that database have fought to keep a 'copyright' on their 1, 2, 3 ... page numbering, absurd as that sounds.
Their additions are helpful to busy lawyers and are in some cases something that can be copyrighted. But the real meat of what they're trying to protect is unarguably the text of those court decisions, which they can't own. Someone with WestLaw access can grab those public domain decisions and post them in his own database, charging little or nothing. He can even collect all the decisions that appear under a particular keyword and publish those in some fashion.
I haven't had a chance to read this bill, but I suspect it is an attempt to give copyright-like protection to something that can't in itself be copyrighted. They're attempting to get around a general principle of copyright law that labor itself can't be copyrighted (i.e. the labor of getting copies of court opinions), only the creative element (i.e. keywords and summaries).
I can offer a parallel. I've published books (i.e. The Pivot of Civilization in Historical Perspective) that bring together public domain magazine texts from a particular era to show how the debate on a particular topic (i.e. birth control) developed over time. When I applied for a copyright for that book, I had to be careful to state that all I was copyrighting was the particular arrangement of those articles in my book and my modern-day comments. Other people have as much right to take the text of those old articles from my book as from their original texts. I don't own them. Under copyright law, I can't own them.
But if I understand this bill from the remarks that are being made, if those texts were placed in a database, perhaps of periodical articles, the text itself would acquire a copyright-like protection, including nasty punitive damaages.
That illustrates one of the many problems with this bill. Why should the labor of putting those old texts in a book be less protected than the labor of putting it into an electronic database?
To a great extent this legislation is being driven by the same greed that drove copyright term extension in the late 1990s. And unless we make a fuss, member of Congress from both parties likely to pass this bill, eager to make large donors happy. They could care less about the grief they cause others.
--Mike Perry, Inkling Books
http://www.InklingBooks.com/
actually yes, you do have an wasy way out and it's almost as simple as you make it.
make a company, create a database of your personal/family information and copyright it. basically download YOURSELF and your family to a database... therfore forcing the phone company, cable company, etc... to license your data from you.
if enough people do this, either the law will get overturned when it becomes a reality, or it will create a gigantic pain in the arse for all corperations.
I.E. my home address and name is your property and for comcast to bill you they MUST have a license to your data and therefore pay a monthly use fee.
you MUST use their own laws against them... I.E. the only way to win is to play by their rules.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.