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HR 3261 and the ownership of factsHR 3261 and the ownership of factsPosted Jan 29, 2004 9:25 UTC (Thu) by ekj (subscriber, #1524)Parent article: HR 3261 and the ownership of facts While I agree that this bill is no good idea I think that LWN is unreasonably alarmist, which is untypical. It is correct that this bill would make wholesale copying of a database someone else has gathered unlawful, but this does explicitly not cover the individual facts found therein. Only making available a "quantitatively substantial part of" a database is disallowed, and a database is defined as: "a collection of a large number of discrete items of information ..." Thus, while this law *would* prevent you from say copying your local telephone-book, it would *not* prevent you from reporting individual facts from it. It's somewhat unclear what "a large number" and "a quantitatively substantial part of" means in practice, but it seems rather obvious that for example the track-listing on the backside of a CD does not contain a "large number" of facts, more like 15-20 for a typical CD. Thus it could still be copied wholesale. A more interesting question is what happens under this law when 2 or more entities choose to gather and maintain the same, or substantially the same database. Making available comercially a substantial part of the information in someone elses database is unlawful, the law does not appear to make any exception for the case where you have gathered the same facts for yourself.
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HR 3261 and the ownership of facts Posted Jan 29, 2004 10:31 UTC (Thu) by mauvaisours (subscriber, #6130) [Link] I do agree that LWN is unreasonably alarmist : this bill covers only the database itself, it does NOT cover the facts.Take the example of sports results : if you create your own database (which is not difficult to do, just look at a sports channel 15 minutes every evening, or take a subscription to your favorite sports newspaper) to collect the datas without access to the database of the professional sports organization, then you can not be held liable for that and can do whatever you want with it.
HR 3261 and the ownership of facts Posted Jan 29, 2004 15:35 UTC (Thu) by cdmiller (subscriber, #2813) [Link] Alarmist eh? Prepared to pay the legal bills necessary to prove you got those sports scores from the television every 15 minutes to create your own database? Or will it be cheaper to settle out of court?
HR 3261 and the ownership of facts Posted Feb 2, 2004 17:53 UTC (Mon) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link] But if those sources you quote originated with the database how have youavoided infringing on their "expression" of the facts? Wouldn't you have to attend or have people who did attend report on the majority of the scores and only use a small number from other sources? Now there are other issues. Enforcement. If everyone can copyright this
HR 3261 and the ownership of facts Posted Jan 29, 2004 22:26 UTC (Thu) by hingo (subscriber, #14792) [Link] Me too...Having lived under a similar law in Europe, I was kind of surprised to see LWN writing about this. To me the law about database copyright is mostly something that limits the time of those copyrights to much less than for other works. Not a bad thing IMHO. It's not the copyright laws that are the problem you know. Indefinately extending the time of protection, DMCA & EUCD, software patents, etcetc... those are the bad things. Remember that also the GPL relies on copyright law. That being said, we obviously won't be surprised when SCO or some other US company finds a way to pervert this law. But that is not the fault of the law, see my comment below... It's somewhat unclear what "a large number" and "a quantitatively substantial part of" Not being a lawyer, I've always taught it means copying practically everything. As has been said, the facts in the database do not become copyrighted, only the database as a (at least almost) whole. henrik
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