HR 3261 and the ownership of facts

HR 3261 and the ownership of facts

Posted Jan 29, 2004 9:16 UTC (Thu) by beejaybee (guest, #1581)
In reply to: HR 3261 and the ownership of facts by vblum
Parent article: HR 3261 and the ownership of facts

Yes, as I understand it, what the EU is trying to restrict is the propogation of personal data without the consent of the data subject.

I wonder which of the US-based megacorporations is funding the current attempt to pervert this into yet another way of restricting competition and so increasing their profits.

The principle here is not that databases should be copyrightable but that information personal to a "data subject" belongs to that data subject (person or corporation), not to the owner/maintainer of the database in which the information happens to be stored.

This is a real issue with the impending introduction of RFID tags, which will for example enable retailers to discover what brand of underwear you are wearing (if any!), where you bought it from and how much you paid by linking the IDs scanned from the tags you're inadvertently carrying at the shop entrance and linking into the database.

If anyone wants an idea for a real killer gadget, how's about one (linux powered of course) which will permanently disable or garble the content of RFIDs.

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