While I am still concerned to some extent about this bill, as I read it the situation is not nearly as dire as the posting suggests. To begin with, the claim that the bill
...allows treble damages to be levied against anyone who uses information that's in a database that a corporation asserts it owns.
is untrue. It imposes no liability on users of a database. It deals only with people who
...make[s] available in commerce to others a quantitatively substantial part of the information in a database...
For the first example consider public records. Yes another database provider may manually reconstruct the entire set of public records each government entitiy creates. What happens when the government entity then enters into contract with the database provider to submit an electronic dataset. For example check out MuniCode [municode.com]. I could go down to my local city hall and get an entire copy of the municipal codes and manually type them and post them. However, this places me at a severe disadvantage over MuniCode. In fact this bill could prevent government agencies from selling electronic data submissions to multiple vendors since once the first vendor receives the data he may claim copyright on the collection and sue the government agency.
For the second example, consider telephone directories. The local telephone provider has a nice monopoly on this data since they are the creator and maintainer of the data. Once they publish the "phone book" it becomes a database. The only way another company can compete to produce directories would be to manually contact each home, business, etc. and collect the information from them. It would be illegal to simply copy the text of the phone book, rearrange it and publish with added value. BTW, check the link in the editorial linked to in the/. story post -- this happened!!! With this law it would be illegal!!!
For the first example consider public records. Yes another database provider may manually reconstruct the entire set of public records each government entitiy creates. What happens when the government entity then enters into contract with the database provider to submit an electronic dataset. For example check out MuniCode . I could go down to my local city hall and get an entire copy of the municipal codes and manually type them and post them. However, this places me at a severe disadvantage over MuniCode
(A) a database generated, gathered, organized, or maintained by a Federal, State, or local governmental entity, or by an employee or agent of such an entity, acting within the scope of such employment or agency;
This exclusion would prevent the Library of Congress from naming a compilation copyright on legislative data it publishes on Thomas [loc.gov]. Any entity may freely wget all the data from the Thomas site and republish it. However, if somebody did this from MuniCode, I'm sure MuniCode would sue!
The language of the contract between an outfit
like Municode and a government entity is not what controls; its the actual situation. If Municode
is acting on behalf of the government entity, it is its agent. So, if publication of the information is construed as a service provided by the government, which it contracts with an outfit like Municode to perform, Municode is an agent of the government and the exclusion applies. In the case of information that it is the role of the government entity to provide,
Your second case, telephone directories, is valid if it is a matter of distributing the same information in essentially the same format. However, as I pointed out in my original post, the requirement that the infringing distribution be a functional equivalent of the original arguably permits derivative works, insofar as they are not functionally equivalent to the original. Your example of a rearranged, value-added telephone directory would seem to fall into this category.
read the bill. it requires the db to contain time-sensitive data. it's just an extension of a misappropriation cause of action to the internet & dbs. no biggie.
"Be there. Aloha."
-- Steve McGarret, _Hawaii Five-Oh_
Is this bill really so bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
While I am still concerned to some extent about this bill, as I read it the situation is not nearly as dire as the posting suggests. To begin with, the claim that the bill
is untrue. It imposes no liability on users of a database. It deals only with people who
U
Re:Is this bill really so bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
For the first example consider public records. Yes another database provider may manually reconstruct the entire set of public records each government entitiy creates. What happens when the government entity then enters into contract with the database provider to submit an electronic dataset. For example check out MuniCode [municode.com]. I could go down to my local city hall and get an entire copy of the municipal codes and manually type them and post them. However, this places me at a severe disadvantage over MuniCode. In fact this bill could prevent government agencies from selling electronic data submissions to multiple vendors since once the first vendor receives the data he may claim copyright on the collection and sue the government agency.
For the second example, consider telephone directories. The local telephone provider has a nice monopoly on this data since they are the creator and maintainer of the data. Once they publish the "phone book" it becomes a database. The only way another company can compete to produce directories would be to manually contact each home, business, etc. and collect the information from them. It would be illegal to simply copy the text of the phone book, rearrange it and publish with added value. BTW, check the link in the editorial linked to in the
Re:Is this bill really so bad? (Score:1)
Re:Is this bill really so bad? (Score:2)
This exclusion would prevent the Library of Congress from naming a compilation copyright on legislative data it publishes on Thomas [loc.gov]. Any entity may freely wget all the data from the Thomas site and republish it. However, if somebody did this from MuniCode, I'm sure MuniCode would sue!
This exclus
Re:Is this bill really so bad? (Score:1)
The language of the contract between an outfit like Municode and a government entity is not what controls; its the actual situation. If Municode is acting on behalf of the government entity, it is its agent. So, if publication of the information is construed as a service provided by the government, which it contracts with an outfit like Municode to perform, Municode is an agent of the government and the exclusion applies. In the case of information that it is the role of the government entity to provide,
Re:Is this bill really so bad? (Score:2)
This may be so, but I would not wan
Re:Is this bill really so bad? (Score:2)