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Alarm is exactly what is called for hereAlarm is exactly what is called for herePosted Jan 30, 2004 20:30 UTC (Fri) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054)In reply to: HR 3261 and the ownership of facts by dps Parent article: HR 3261 and the ownership of facts
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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