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Whois information copyrighted
Jonas Öberg writes "It appears as if Network Solutions fairly recently put in a clause at the end of all whois requests, telling you that you're not allowed to reproduce, sell, transfer or modify the information. See whois slashdot.org for an example. " I've seen this before-can anyone tell us when this first started?
When I complained to Internic about spam I was receiving due to their database being mined and sold, I was told that there was nothing that could be done because the information was in the public domain.
... how convenient.
Now when their monopoly is threatened, they take ownership of the data and how it's used
2) The information itself is public domain. This means all they can control is access to their database. There is legal precedent that says if I have access to their database, I can suck all the information out of it and put it in my own, then do with my database as I please. The only way this can work for them is if they put the database totally off limits; nice catch-22 they've gotten themselves into, eh? ;)
In 1991, the Supreme Court decided that the factual content of phone directories are NOT copyrightable. (see Feist Publications, 499 US 340)
There is little difference between a phone book entry and a whois entry; they may be able to copyright the FORM of the database, but the INFORMATION is useable by all.
[I've really got to start doing this with Lynx; I've about had it with netscape's shenanigans. Once I figure out how to make it pop up new windows for links, I have no more use for netscape. But don't have time to read the source code right now. Especially with the time I'm spending retyping.]
Disclaimer: I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. I am probably not licensed in your state or nation. IF you need advice on this, see a lawyer who is. This disclaimer void on odd-numbered moons of Jupiter.
A contract must always have "offer" and "acceptance." While we frequently think of acceptance as explicit, it isn't. An acceptance may also be made by conduct. If I offer you ten bucks to mow my lawn, you can accept by showing up and beginning. Your favorite store clerk accpets your offer to buy merchandise at the posted price by ringing it up. And the theory behind shrinkwrap licenses has you axccepting by opening the wrapper.
This doesn't seem to fall into that case. The purported offer comes after the conduct to accept; it certainly doesn't apply to the original transaction.
I also dougbt that it can apply to later transactions--while the argument can be made based on prior notice from a previous listing, the "offer" and "acceptance" are not on the same putative contract.
A more interesting contract question comes from the attempt to add such conditions. The whois command has become standard, and is based on the arrangement to provide this information. THere may be an offer & acceptance of the original terms. I'm not sure what the answer is on that one, it will take a lot of thought that I don't have time for at the moment.
Actually, NSI has hidden the "real" whois, fancy free at http://www.nsiregistry.com which is basically the old WHOIS we got at http://www.internic.net and NSIregistry does not have that copyright notice. Example: WHOIS Slashdot.Org
On the web-based interface, NSI has been slapping on their bogus "agreement" since at least 22 March 1999. See this post from news.admin.net-abuse.email.
However, DejaNews^H^H^H^H.com has no postings yet in news.admin.net-abuse.sightings with the NSI bluff, so I suspect that those of us who do whois from a *NIX prompt only started getting served this rider within the past day or two.
That said, the so-called "agreement" is absolute hogwash.
IANAL, but I think that as a government monopoly for lo these many years, the whois database should be public domain, just as it is not possible to copyright government documents in the U.S.