Owning Facts
As
InfoWorld reports, a House subcommittee approved the Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act of 2003, something previously called the Database Antipiracy Act. As Infoworld points out, "The bill would allow owners of databases to secure copyright-like protections on facts within databases, not just proprietary information."
Briefly put, the danger in this is that companies who gather factual data would be able to prevent others from republishing that factual data. So, for example, the NBA can claim ownership of game scores, preventing news agencies from reporting them without payment. Or publishers can gather data from US government sources (such as court proceedings) and prevent others from publishing the data--even though such information is generally supposed to be in the public domain.
This is a bad thing.
See the
ACLU letter on this topic as well.
Posted by johndan at October 20, 2003 03:28 PM
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