As other have mentioned posts to USENET are public, therefore, a poster may own the copyright to it, but there is no protection under copyright law. It is public domain.
What google does own is an extremly complete database of public USENET communications. It also happens to be a database that ANY other person/entity could have compiled, but did not. Here lies the problem. Google paid deja for the time and expense that went in to the compilation and storage of that database. They also purchased the software that deja had written to search/access this large database. So in all reality, I don't know how google could be forced to turn over data, that is already in the public domain,just because they were the only one's smart enough to buy it from someone that compiled it all. It is clear that you can copyright stock analysis or similar data that is based on information that is wholly in the bublic domain, but due to it's value when compiled becomes copyrightable on it's own.
From the sounds of things Google does not intend to do this, but it certainly would be within their rights.
I just wrote my Rep. Here's the letter I sent, feel free to use it. Go to
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
Recently Representative Rich Boucher (D-Virginia) has proposed a bill, The Music Owners' Listening Rights Act of 2000, amending Chapter 1 of title 17, United States Code, following section 122 to strengthen the rights of consumers with respect to downloadable music on the Internet. I fully support this move and hope you do as well. I feel a number of court decisions have misinterpreted existing legislation such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in ways that are highly detrimental to the rights of consumers. Representative Boucher's bill affirms the rights of individual consumers to enjoy the copyrighted works they own in any manner they see fit. Many organizations would like to see further restrictions placed on the consumers' fair use of copyrighted material. This bill does nothing to remove protections for copyrighted material, it just clarifies the intent of congress to ensure that consumers rights are protected. I'm sure that the rights of the consumer are important to you and I urge your support of this bill.
What really concerns me is the IOC claims they do not have money for extensive drug testing of atheletes, but they bring in millions in cash for endorsments and being the official everything of the olympics. The olympics are under threat of loosing their "pristine" image that makes them great. Soon they will have as much respect as the WWF (No flames you WWF lovers) has in professional sports.
Slashdot Mirror
Why not just sequence the DNA of the leather? Pigs have DNA too.
As other have mentioned posts to USENET are public, therefore, a poster may own the copyright to it, but there is no protection under copyright law. It is public domain. What google does own is an extremly complete database of public USENET communications. It also happens to be a database that ANY other person/entity could have compiled, but did not. Here lies the problem. Google paid deja for the time and expense that went in to the compilation and storage of that database. They also purchased the software that deja had written to search/access this large database. So in all reality, I don't know how google could be forced to turn over data, that is already in the public domain,just because they were the only one's smart enough to buy it from someone that compiled it all. It is clear that you can copyright stock analysis or similar data that is based on information that is wholly in the bublic domain, but due to it's value when compiled becomes copyrightable on it's own. From the sounds of things Google does not intend to do this, but it certainly would be within their rights.
I just wrote my Rep. Here's the letter I sent, feel free to use it. Go to http://www.house.gov/writerep/ Recently Representative Rich Boucher (D-Virginia) has proposed a bill, The Music Owners' Listening Rights Act of 2000, amending Chapter 1 of title 17, United States Code, following section 122 to strengthen the rights of consumers with respect to downloadable music on the Internet. I fully support this move and hope you do as well. I feel a number of court decisions have misinterpreted existing legislation such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in ways that are highly detrimental to the rights of consumers. Representative Boucher's bill affirms the rights of individual consumers to enjoy the copyrighted works they own in any manner they see fit. Many organizations would like to see further restrictions placed on the consumers' fair use of copyrighted material. This bill does nothing to remove protections for copyrighted material, it just clarifies the intent of congress to ensure that consumers rights are protected. I'm sure that the rights of the consumer are important to you and I urge your support of this bill.
What really concerns me is the IOC claims they do not have money for extensive drug testing of atheletes, but they bring in millions in cash for endorsments and being the official everything of the olympics. The olympics are under threat of loosing their "pristine" image that makes them great. Soon they will have as much respect as the WWF (No flames you WWF lovers) has in professional sports.