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Don't Take Notes In the Bookstore
mikesd81 writes "The Harvard Crimson reports that the Harvard Coop asked Jarret A. Zafran to leave the store after writing down the prices of six books required for a junior Social Studies tutorial. The apparent new policy could be a response to Crimsonreading.org, an online database that allows students to find the books they need for each course at discounted prices from several online booksellers. The Coop claims the ISBN identification numbers in books are their intellectual property. Crimson Reading disagrees. 'We don't think the Coop owns copyright on this information that should be available to students,' said Tom D. Hadfield, co-creator of the site. The student paper reports that an unnamed intellectual property lawyer agreed with Crimson Reading's position."
Surely you have to demonstrate that some intellectual effort went into the production of the ISBN for it to come under IP law in the first place (regardless of "ownership"). Presumably the publisher was just allocated a bunch of ISBNs and they just happened to allocat one of them this one book? Shoot me down if you like. I'm not an expert.
Because you haven't looked? Some of my friends are cops, and I assure you they have to be subjected to everything before they can carry it(except firearms, obviously). OC spray is part of academy training, everyone gets it. They're sprayed and then have to run a gauntlet and fight. TASER training is optional, but if the department even uses them being hit with one is part of being certified to carry it.