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HR 3261 and the ownership of factsHR 3261 and the ownership of factsPosted Jan 30, 2004 11:11 UTC (Fri) by dps (subscriber, #5725)Parent article: HR 3261 and the ownership of facts Most of the proposals for making this law stupid miss a critical point: there is only a case under copyright law *if you can show copying*. The is no case even if I create byte for byte indentical database provided I did not copy yours. Ergo, a database of jokes would *not* allow you to sue anyone who independently creates exactly the same database, let alone comedians. Even in the abcense of this law silly stuff still applies---I have spent about a week of time the boss pays me for recreating BT's local/national call matrix and a list of international dialing codes, including which are mobiles (both of which are databases as HR 3261 defines the term). At least one person we spoke to *could* have given us the local call/national call matrix but refused to do so. Not only did they have the matrix but we had a relationship with them and a good reason for wanting the data too. BTW I interpret the copyright as covering the database as a whole and not the indicidual facts within it.
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Alarm is exactly what is called for here Posted Jan 30, 2004 20:30 UTC (Fri) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054) [Link] Anyone who thinks otherwise hasn't been paying attention lately. There is no worthy intent behind this bill. There are plenty of databases of facts out there, and curious folks are making more all the time. Can you conceive of a way that society benefits if I'm not allowed to collect directly-available facts and toss them into my website? Make no mistake---this is directly about taking utility from the citizens and giving it to companies so they may extract more money. If you doubt this could be bad, cast an eye back over the DMCA cases we've seen which have nothing to do with the alleged intent of the law, but which succeed due to the obtuseness of the U.S. legal system. You can lose when you're in the right, simply because you can't afford to prove it. Possibly worse, you can find yourself refraining from exercising your rights because you can't be sure where the edge of the minefield is. As one of ESR's aphorisms has it: The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. The way to discern evil is not by its intent, but by its effect.
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