Do You Have A License For Those Facts? 525
spikedvodka writes "Wired is reporting that the "Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act (HR3261)" is under consideration. It passed the house Judiciary Committee, and is on it's way to the Commerce Committee. This bill would allow companies to copyright databases. (Think phone-number databases) and goes directly against the idea that nobody can own a fact." (See this earlier posting.)
copyrights? (Score:2, Insightful)
Geez. This really is getting out of hand. Copyrights (despite the fact that scholars have said that copyrights are getting out of hand) being handed out, crazy patents, SCO's antics, the DMCA, Patriot Act..
Are we legislating ourselves out of existance faster than we know it?
Absolutely ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong direction... (Score:3, Insightful)
As usual, everyone should write to their congress critters [loc.gov] and register their opinions.
Re:Prior law might defeat this in court (Score:5, Insightful)
No it doesn't (Score:3, Insightful)
Government and Industry Working Together (Score:2, Insightful)
To make more money , politicians and corporations have been looking for ways to turn that freely available public information into a profit making enterprise. Business owned copyrights give direct profit for the corporations, and indirect profit for the politicians, who accept bribes^D^D^D^D^D^D campaign contributions.
In the past, proposed laws have made adding page numbers, covers, etc to a document enough to put a stamp of copyright on it.
Thank goodness for "activist judges" who recognize that what we pay for is ours, and not theirs.
Re:Prior law might defeat this in court (Score:3, Insightful)
Phone Books (Score:5, Insightful)
He also says that despite Kupferschmid's characterization, the bill puts no limit on the amount of information someone needs to take from a database to violate the law.
So if I write down a phone number out of a phone book would I be thrown in a pound me in the ass prison
Re:Prior law might defeat this in court (Score:2, Insightful)
I hope it doesn't even pass.
Honestly, I would be willing to copyright stats for NBA, NHL, MLB, NCAAB, NFL, and MLS. Then I would go to each respective league, ESPN, Fox Sports, and all local sports shows and sue them for copy infringement. I'd also license out the stats for a high price. Early retirement, here I come.
In seriousness, is there anything that actually protects the use of data itself? Couldn't somebody just throw the entire dictionary in a database as data, and then sue anybody who used any word? This whole thing seems absurd.
Re:Nobody can own a fact. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nobody can own a fact. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Absolutely ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Absolutely ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
What's wrong here is that a phone book, for instance, is already protected under the law. You can't just take an existing database and republish it exactly as is. What you can do is gather the same set of data and publish this in your own format. This is consistent with the intent of copyright...to protect original work.
The more insidious problem is that those who have the money and influence will control the data.
What will be interesting is how the overlap between corporate databases is resolved. Does an email list of potential customers from Dell infringe on the copyright of a similar list from Gateway. There would undoubtably be an overlap.
IMHO, this is a ridiculous law.
M
So how about this (Score:4, Insightful)
Make a database of your personal information (Name, phone number, address, family history, etc).
Sue other companies for using your "copyrighted data", which is held by your company.
Profit! (For the lawyers anyway)
=Smidge=
Re:Phone Books (Score:2, Insightful)
A view from the trenches.... (Score:5, Insightful)
But, and here's the part where I get sent to burn in karma hell, there are "collections of facts" that should be copyrightable.
Let me give you an example, quality multi-lingual terminological databases and glossaries are multi-year projects that demand a great deal of capital and human labor.
These terms are out there for anyone to do the work and compile them, yet no one will do this kind of tedious and thorough work unless they have a reasonable guarantee of being properly remunerated for their efforts now and into the future.
I would argue that a 10-year copyright period is more than sufficient for this kind of work to thrive.
In an ideal world, universities would band together to create these works and then release them to the public domain, but most universities these days operate as large corporate conglomerates and have very little interest in producing public goods.
Re:lawyers (Score:4, Insightful)
The entire system needs to be simplified and speedier. It can takes years to get simple cases resolved. Even ones that are downright silly.
But legal reform isn't the only thing needed - the entire federal and state criminal and civil codes need to be re-written and simplified, along with IRS codes, etc, etc. Just think about the time and money wasted because of the foolish complexity of the system. Any party that is truly committed to simplification of the system will get my vote. And neither the GOP nor the Democrats are interested in anything but more complexity - which allows them to help their pet special interests at the expense of the public.
Re:Absolutely ridiculous (Score:2, Insightful)
Advancement of what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Section. 8.
Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
How does this advance Arts or Science? It's a real stretch to say that a list of customer data is a Writing or a Discovery.
Nobody can own a fact.-DB's just want to be free (Score:1, Insightful)
Because like trade secrets, once it's out in the wild. Then you're screwed
Re: IP vs Copyrights (Score:5, Insightful)
The catch is as soon as you share, your secret isn't a secret any more, and this is where the corporate money-grubers don' want the the process to stop.
Hate to sound like a broken record, but: (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem will get worse before it gets better.
Re:Absolutely ridiculous (Score:2, Insightful)
you must be kidding right. You support government protecting corporations(think haliburton) and yet you are concerned but the "little guy". You have to pick one side. Pity is the last thing we need.
Why is this such a crazy idea? (Score:3, Insightful)
Companies (and individuals) expend a great deal of time, energy, and resources to compile information. Why should they not be afforded some protection for that effort? The example of legal databases from the article is a perfect one -- it takes time, money, and a large amount of effort to enter cases and decisions into a database. This proposed law will not make those cases copyrighted, but simply the aggregated collection of cases in the database. There's a world of difference.
All this means is that you can't freely copy a set of information compiled by someone else without their permission. Seems fair to me. It's not the facts themselves (e.g. phone numbers, stock quotes etc.) that would be copyrighted, but some specific collection of facts. If you really want a database of stock quotes, you're free to create your own (or ask the copyright holder if you can use theirs).
Re:Nobody can own a fact. (Score:3, Insightful)
Short answer: No.
Long answer: Because as you say, where do we draw the line? The whole DB? 50% of the DB? 10%? 1%? And what about a DB of DBs? How would you like not being able to access your DB because it has now become a fact in someone else's DB?
Re:Hmms... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think there's a real chance of it being declared unconstitutional, because Congress's authority to issue patents and copyrights is "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." (US Const, Art. 1, s. 8, p. 8) That said, they'll probably just pass it as a law governing interstate commerce.
Re:Ahem. Almanacs. (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, a map. Yes you can look at a map and pull out a street name (a "fact") and use it to address your next envelope. No you cannot photocopy the map (the "database") or even a significant portion of the map without permission.
Frankly, it bemuses me that databases aren't already protected by copyright laws.
Just make it time-consuming to scrape. (Score:5, Insightful)
I realized some time ago that it'd be relatively trivial for someone to come along and scrape all the URLs I link to, put 'em on a page with a buncha ads, and try to make a buck off stuff I'd spent a lot of time on. But I'm not terribly concerned about it happening. Why?
There's no law saying that database output must be presented in a format that's easy for people to scrape, any more than email addresses.
Wouldn't it be better... (Score:2, Insightful)
Ah, great, just what we need...... (Score:3, Insightful)
The legal system needs a reset button.
Re:Prior law might defeat this in court (Score:3, Insightful)
IANAL but that doesn't make any sense.
The precedent is irrelevant. They're taking something that was legal under the law and passing a law to make it illegal. If a case is brought to court over that law and the law is found to be unconstitutional, then it might be overturned. The precedent would have no bearing since the law itself is changed.
"Originality, not effort" (Score:5, Insightful)
Amen Brother ... (Score:4, Insightful)
In my opinion, there's only one answer: amend the US Constitution so that Reps and Sens can only serve two terms (like the President) and limit campaign contributions to $100 per person to each candidate in each election. No PACs, no unions, no companies and no churches, only voters can give.
But of course Congress would kill that in a second.
Rome is burning and George II is just playin' the banjo to some corporations music.
But... (Score:5, Insightful)
So we must look at this case. Has there been a lack of growth in factual databases due to the inability to profit from them in the same way that, say, the author of a novel can? No, I think not. If then is the case then it seems to undermine the whole enterprise of copyrights and patents altogether. For it seems that if a company can and will go through so much trouble to create a database of phone numbers without any monopoly protection, that lesser efforts will surely happen with or without such protections as well.
So, if these legal monopolies were created for a purpose and they no longer serve to help fulfill that purpose, then what good are they? None at all.
Re:We're doomed. (Score:2, Insightful)
Simliarities? If you own something as general as a "fact" you're becoming close outright declaration of possessing ideas, and who owns ideas sounds frighteningly simliar to what you're allowed to think and thus act on, which sounds reminiscent of "thought policing". Insert "idea expression policing" perhaps in this scenario, because under these rules something as intangible and ambiguous as "facts" will be copyrighted. Thus, you better be careful what facts you use and access - that notion is sounding more and more preposterous the more I think about it.
It's not a slippery slope analogy, because owning the rights to general "facts" is close enough to warrant outright concern in and of itself.
It kind of limits self-expression, doesn't it? I feel like this is sort of an ammendment issue almost. It's one thing for databases to charge fees for use, as harvesting information these days is a huge job. But *what* they harvest shouldn't belong to anybody, unless it's under a privacy issue or other disclosed / copyright issue / blah blah blah.
Re:Absolutely ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)
This might have been true a hundred years ago, certainly not before that when the US did not yet have much own work to protect, and certainly not much later when the public good was just a stage for larger interests keen on keeping power to themselves.
But yes, for the public good, copyrights could be seen as an incentive to innovation while ensuring that good ideas are spread for everyones best. If it weren't for the part about exactly when and how we ought to take care and possession of our heritage.
fix that wackbar law (Score:5, Insightful)
in fact, until there are some competent reviewers, I suspect it would be good if all further patents, copyrights, and laws regarding digital matters just freakin' S T O P.
Relevant quotes (Score:5, Insightful)
So I guess the (high priced) LexisNexis feels threatened by the free information provided by Google et. al.
An encyclopedia site not only could own the historical facts contained in its online entries, but could do so long after the copyright on authorship of the written entries had expired. Unlike copyright, which expires 70 years after the death of a work's author, the Misappropriation Act doesn't designate an expiration date.
Finally we're getting perpetual ownership of information. It's only a matter of time before it gets put into regular copyrights in order to harmonize the laws. Disney's wet dream come true.
Commercial database companies say they invest millions of dollars in collecting, editing and organizing information for their customers, but don't have adequate protection to prevent someone from stealing the information to compete with them.
To me this is the worst possible justification for a new law. No one made them invest millions of dollars.
Re:Ahem. Almanacs. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, and if you read the fine article, it's the collection of facts that is proposed for protection, not the individual facts themselves. Again, I would say that this is fair; putting together a large database is hard work. You're free to create your own database using the same methods, and put it in the public domain. Why should you be free to reproduce someone else's database in its entirety (or a substantial portion) without permission, even if it is a large collection of publicly available knowledge?
Re:A view from the trenches.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Absolutely ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)
And why wouldn't it have been true before the 20th century? All the contemporary writings on the subject revolved around that. The language in the Constitution is pretty clear, as was it before that, all the way back to the Statute of Anne.
A new way of censorship... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Absolutely ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)
Corporations will squeeze every last damn cent they can out of anyone.
I'm all for corporations making profits
Now your first statement seems to be an opinion against the second statement. How can you be opposed to increasing profit margins (squeezing pennies) and for making profits. That's their job as put forward by the stockholders of the company to make money.
When will the government stop this capitalism run amok?
the government helping protect this
Well.... First off I don't agree w/ the ideal of capitalism run amok. Thats a little bit of a misnomer. Once government begins to regulate and restrict capitalism itself it's loses one of it's most essential properties, equality. I have as much as a right to try to earn money as you do. When you introduce regulations, requirements, protections, whatever the flavor of the day wishes to call it you alter the playing field. In most cases the playing feild becomes skew'd to prefer those with the most lawyers (which you stated you dislike). So in turn since instead of simply competiting in business you must compete legally, which leads to the pissing contest my of "my lawfirm is bigger than yours".
The governmental regulations of copyright, liscensing, regulations (including 'saftey', not directed @ human rights but, you must have a Class B8C2 style light fixture in this office hurts small businesses trying to comply w/ thousands of such), and all sorts of crazy wacky laws and such put upon these businesses. It is these artifical laws that tend to skew the favor of the business world towards those who have the biggest pockets because they have the lawyers to attack their competitors on the legal playing feilds instead of trying to compete with them on the business field.
So if you dislike the way the current corporate/legal enviroment is looking don't go and try to create a new law to "protect" the little guy from them. Remember all your doing is feeding the monster by giving the law firms representing them more money because now these corporations have to find a new way around your new law (they weren't just gonna shut their doors because of your new law were they?). So now you've simply increased the coroprate dependency upon their legal leg.
Instead you should be fighting to remove all of these regulations (that most actually were lobbied for by the industries they regulate against) to increase competition and decrease their market share.
(As a quick support to the previous argument. Say I'm WalMart. I have 1000's of little competitors in 1000's of small towns across the US. I already have bad PR due to the fact that I'm crushing them when I move in but, I want to move in anyhow, I just don't want the bad press. So I lobby for a law requiring that all retail spaces that carry X products or X# of these and Y# of these to be required by Federal Law to have these certain safety devices or these special safety lights. Because ya know? We really need to protect the children and the consumers. Yeah WalMart will take a hit having to buy 1,000's of these lights/devices @ $1200 a peice. But, they get a discount and the 1000's of small business's now have to shell out $3000 or more for similar things. Now maybe 25% of these can't handle the cost (remember this wouldn't be an isolated regulation, get a congress that loves passing "protect the children" regulations and these start to pile up) and have to close up shop. Now WalMart is rescuing these communities because they are lacking a convient way to buy basic needs for their children. Now they saved the day.
Regulations arn't the answer because they merely skew the results to those who understand the regulations the best, those are the ones with the lawyers.
So please please please, give me capitalism run amok.
The real motivation behind HR3261 (Score:3, Insightful)
Lawyers of course!
In america, so called "justice" is a market like everithing else.
Re:Hmms... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. A good analogy would be an encyclopedia -- each entry is nothing but facts, facts, facts, but they're written in a particular way which itself is copyrightable. You can re-copy the facts, but (barring fair use) not the exact format in which it's written.
A database is very similar: a bunch of facts written to a hard drive in a particular way which is uniquely readable and useful (and marketable).
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
No, actually we're... (Score:1, Insightful)
Just because Wired says it doesn't make it true! (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, it's not FACTS that are being copyrighted. It's databases. Yes, a database is a collection of facts -- but it's the concept of collection that's being protected here, not the concept of facts.
Think about it this way: you can copyright a guitar riff, but you obviously can't copyright a note. A note is a basic, concrete thing, you can't CREATE a new note. Does this fact bely the creation of original songs? I don't think so...every time music seems stagnant, somebody finds a new way to make it.
In the same way, you can't copyright a word, but you can copyright a book. You can't copyright red, but you can use it in your painting.
The creative act of assembling a database -- and if you don't think it's creative, you've never done it, it takes a TREMENDOUS effort to assemble and maintain a useful data relation even if you're using publically accessible information -- is something that should be protected. It gives data warehousers the same assurance that other content creators receive, so that they can offer access to their systems without worrying about losing the value...something which in my experience has plagued content creators greatly.
In fact, I see no reason why databases can't be fairly used same as any other created work. For example: let's say I run a sports website. If I wrote an editorial, and you wanted to quote a few lines on your own site, you'd be allowed to. But copy all the text and you're in violation of copyright. It'd be the same with databases. Want to quote a sport score or two? No problem, that's fair. Want to present all of yesterday's results? You'd better ask permission or start compiling them yourself. I don't have a problem with this.
In other news.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Just because Wired says it doesn't make it true (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't??? How about the fact that practically all other creative work is STATIC, and most databases are DYNAMIC??? See the problem now? It's relatively easy to define a copied work of a static object, but how do you define a copy of a dynamic object? It would be a nightmare. This is a serious problem.
Re:Database of one? (Score:3, Insightful)
You'd need to prove that someone else stole your database, as opposed to arriving at it independently. As the plaintiff, you have the burden of proof.
Not so bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just because Wired says it doesn't make it true (Score:2, Insightful)
In fact, I'd say it would be impossible to have copyright at all if your type of definition were essential to copyright law. Luckily, it isn't. In fact, the definition is quite loose and most analysis of derivation is performed by the courts. Database copyright would be the same, but first it has to be declaratively illegal to steal from a database. This requires the law to recognize databases as a copyrightable entity, which is what this is about.
Stop being stupid! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me make this clear: I believe the database bill to be terrible and dangerous legislation. I also believe that the technical community can be instrumental in helping to stop it.
Let me make this clear as well: If the technical community persists in their decade-long strategy of histrionic "chicken-little" screaming every time a bad bill comes out, we will once again see nothing but bad legislation pass.
This is what happened with DMCA, it is what happened with the Patriot Act changes, and it is now happening again with the database bill. Note that the database legislation was originally attached to DMCA, but withdrawn due to excellent lobbying. That can and should happen again, unless we screw up the way we did with DMCA.
Meaningless or false statement (depending how you define terms) such as the ones above serve noone but those who support the bill. The bill does not provide copyright protections (it is a different kind of right, both less and more in different ways), nor does it provide ownership of "facts."
Oh, yes. There are probably rationalizations that foolish people might proffer to defend these remarks, but by the time they have finished confusing those who do not need to be converted, they have long since lost credibility, and the attention of every relevant legislator or person who might otherwise have moved favorably from the fence.
So, please, oh please! STOP THE MADNESS. Remember the line from Apollo 13: "Gentlemen we are not going to do this, we're not going to go bouncing off the walls for ten minutes because were just going to end up right back here with the same problems."
If you are interested in this, and you should be, take the time to read the bill and learn what there is to worry about. Don't oppose it as a knee-jerk, and focus on what is wrong with the bill. Maybe it can be completely defeated, maybe not. But it will never be defeated, and like DMCA, is far more likely to be passed entirely, unless we show an intelligent, balanced and "straight-shooting" front.
The bill needs to be defeated. I assure you that remarks like the foregoing are not the way to do it.
Re:Just because Wired says it doesn't make it true (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Just because Wired says it doesn't make it true (Score:5, Insightful)
Say I have a list of names , and another list of colours. If I make an association between the names and the colors, I have created something new, even if I didn't create the colors and I didn't create the names. You can now get a list of names that are associated with the color blue. That association is my creation. This new law would say that I own the association. It doesn't say that I own the names and colors.
And as for That said, I think I'd be willing to accept conceptual ownership of data collections provided it came with some responsibilities, mainly, database owners should make (enforceable) promises about the integrity of their data: ownership is not the same as copyright. You don't have to have accurate data to copyright a book...you could copyright a book comprised entirely of lies. Anne Coulter has done it several times. All copyright does is say "I made this. You can make your own, but you can't copy mine unless I say you can." Ownership of data is something completely different...something that's very difficult in a digital environment.
What is public domain? (Score:3, Insightful)
So you have to bring it down to their level. I think that "Happy Birthday" should be in the public domain. So is "God Bless America." Did congress even considering asking about copyrights before they were on the steps singing it to an audience of billions (based on world wide tv coverage)? As congress critters are now answering questions in public, it might be a good question to ask.
Back to Happy Birthday... Who here has ever heard of live performance by the author of that song? Who learned the song from copyrighted sheet music? I contend that the vast numbers of people who have no idea that it is even copyright is very strong proof that it is in the public domain.
The odds of getting sued for singing "Happy Brithyday" to someone is very, very small but the RIAA has gone after 12 yr olds in the past. Is that song worth your life savings? If more people understood that, then congress would be forced to protect the public domain.
Re:Just because Wired says it doesn't make it true (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet you suggest that you would now own the association "sky is [blue]".
Your associations are still just facts, which would be discoverable by anyone willing to put forth their own resources. You haven't created something new, only collected a bunch of facts to create new facts.
That you cannot copyright a collection of facts is because anyone else can collect them for themselves but be barred from sharing their independent collection for which they exerted their own efforts just because you got there first.
It's bringing the worst parts of patent law to bear in protection of databases.
Re:More [biased] info... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. NOBODY is trying to COPYRIGHT ANYTHING! NOBODY is trying to OWN FACTS! (Please repeat this to yourself three times before continuing to read anything anywhere)
2. Big database companies (like West) are worried that other companies can slurp up large parts of their data and turn around and sell it. Everyone agrees this is unfair and shouldn't be allowed.
3. Big companies now KNOW that COPYRIGHT DOES NOT PROTECT THEM from situation 2 above because of Feist. (Google it with copyright).
4. Big companies want some law to point to when situation 2 actually happens.
The real problem(s):
a. Situation 2 may not be a real problem. No one has shown that this is actually happening.
b. Big companies (like West) like to sue honest competitors to gain any advantage they can. That's their job. (Google West and Lexis)
c. The new legislation may be addressing a non-problem while facilitating expensive, unnecessary lawsuits designed to harass competition.
d. (The big one for me) The new legislation may chill the activities of companies like Google who might inadvertently become liable.
Hey man, can I bum a sig?
Data is Information and Information is power (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Easiest way out... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is true already! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Database of one? (Score:2, Insightful)
You know, I used to have that level of idealism about the U.S. legal system until the recent actions of the RIAA. I suppose this falls under the classic Slashdot line, "Where have you been?" (By the way, for whoever owns the copyright on that, I'm not using it for profit, and it is only a small excerpt of your comment quoted as part of fair use rights.) What you say may be the case with respect to final court decisions, but in reality, money is the law. Burden of proof is on the accused's bank account long before a lawsuit ever comes to a conclusion--most of the time before it even starts.
And if the courts don't beat the hell out of SCO with a cluebat pretty soon, your original conclusion may even be suspect.
Follow the Money to Lexis and Westlaw (Score:3, Insightful)
The content (facts) they are selling are court opinions, which are about as far into the public domain as you can get. They add value by correcting judges's mistakes (i.e. in referring to another case) and by adding headings, summaries, cross-references and keywords. It has also been true that some courts have regarded the page numbering in one of the databases (I believe it was WestLaw) as THE way to make references in legal briefs filed before a court. The owners of that database have fought to keep a 'copyright' on their 1, 2, 3 ... page numbering, absurd as that sounds.
Their additions are helpful to busy lawyers and are in some cases something that can be copyrighted. But the real meat of what they're trying to protect is unarguably the text of those court decisions, which they can't own. Someone with WestLaw access can grab those public domain decisions and post them in his own database, charging little or nothing. He can even collect all the decisions that appear under a particular keyword and publish those in some fashion.
I haven't had a chance to read this bill, but I suspect it is an attempt to give copyright-like protection to something that can't in itself be copyrighted. They're attempting to get around a general principle of copyright law that labor itself can't be copyrighted (i.e. the labor of getting copies of court opinions), only the creative element (i.e. keywords and summaries).
I can offer a parallel. I've published books (i.e. The Pivot of Civilization in Historical Perspective) that bring together public domain magazine texts from a particular era to show how the debate on a particular topic (i.e. birth control) developed over time. When I applied for a copyright for that book, I had to be careful to state that all I was copyrighting was the particular arrangement of those articles in my book and my modern-day comments. Other people have as much right to take the text of those old articles from my book as from their original texts. I don't own them. Under copyright law, I can't own them.
But if I understand this bill from the remarks that are being made, if those texts were placed in a database, perhaps of periodical articles, the text itself would acquire a copyright-like protection, including nasty punitive damaages.
That illustrates one of the many problems with this bill. Why should the labor of putting those old texts in a book be less protected than the labor of putting it into an electronic database?
To a great extent this legislation is being driven by the same greed that drove copyright term extension in the late 1990s. And unless we make a fuss, member of Congress from both parties likely to pass this bill, eager to make large donors happy. They could care less about the grief they cause others.
--Mike Perry, Inkling Books
http://www.InklingBooks.com/
Re:More [biased] info... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't agree.
There's nothing unfair about selling, re-selling, borrowing, or trading facts, in any way shape or form. There is nothing wrong with re-typing 25 pages out of the phone book and then selling them to some schmuck.*
As far as Lexis-Nexis is concerned, there is some concern that their "monopoly" (that's in quotes because it's probably an exaggeration but still mostly true) - their monopoly may already be restricting access to public information. Apparently since you have to pay for Lexis-Nexis, and L-N is the only place to get legal info, that means that poor people simply don't have access to legal info.
*A more likely scenario is that someone would reprint the phone numbers in a phone book and sell advertising space. Who cares? Who really cares about stealing phone numbers from the phone book? Instead of legislating the solution, maybe they should take a cue (sp?) from mapmakers, who have some very crafty ways of protecting the data that they sell.
Yes, you're missing something huge. (Score:3, Insightful)
By insisting that you should have no right to protect your particular system of organizing a collection, the detractors are, knowingly or not, pushing to destroy, hinder the creation of, or make the access to increasingly more difficult, a huge amount of useful products. This is a very good bill and it covers all the caveats people think it does not.
If only they would read and comprehend it this argument would be over.
Re:Easiest way out... (Score:5, Insightful)
make a company, create a database of your personal/family information and copyright it. basically download YOURSELF and your family to a database... therfore forcing the phone company, cable company, etc... to license your data from you.
if enough people do this, either the law will get overturned when it becomes a reality, or it will create a gigantic pain in the arse for all corperations.
I.E. my home address and name is your property and for comcast to bill you they MUST have a license to your data and therefore pay a monthly use fee.
you MUST use their own laws against them... I.E. the only way to win is to play by their rules.