Re: Re: H.R. 3261? -- Fine! But don't call them "facts"

The bill does not use the term "facts". Further, databases store data, not just facts. Thus, your argument is just not relevant to the Bill.

What bothers me about the bill is that the language is so subjective that it provides no notice as to what is covered and what is not. I would never uphold such language if I were a judge. Potential infringers have a right to approximately where the boundaries are.

-Bodi
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Dailey" <david.dailey[_at_]sru.edu> To: "CNI-COPYRIGHT -- Copyright & Intellectual Property" <CNI-COPYRIGHT[_at_]cni.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 4:56 PM Subject: [CNI-(C)] Re: H.R. 3261? -- Fine! But don't call them "facts"

> At 11:15 AM 2/20/2004 -0500, Drew Urbanek wrote:
> >Has anyone checked out the text of H.R. 3261? It seems to be saying that
> >it will now be permissible to copyright facts, according to the American
> >Library Association. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this.
Thanks.
>
> I have. I don't like it. The Bill would be entitled (if it passes) the
> "Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act" and can be
> read at

http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~dkarjala/cyberlaw/HR3261(10-8-03).htm.
>
> Since cni-copyright got started some years ago (before many of you had
even
> registered your DNA), the Congress of the US, and/or the Executive branch
> of the government, in collusion with WIPO, have undergone periodic
> tribulations involving the privatization of "facts" (and perhaps other
more
> frivolous data -- though I was never quite sure which non-factual data the
> lobbiests were most interested in). In one fit of unbridled cynicism, I
> declared that "Every year a new bill is introduced; eventually one will
> pass; few will notice, and fewer will mourn." (see also
> http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/copyright/Database2.htm and
> http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/copyright/database1.htm for allied
> rants).
>
> Well, I have reconsidered -- or at least I have considered
> reconsidering. If we wish to weigh, slice, and meter our facts as though
> they were bowling lines and to license them, rather than to sell or give
> them away, then fine! But let us restrict the first amendment rights for
> BOTH sides, fairly. Let us at least require honesty in our advertising. I
> will agree not to use your "facts," if you agree not to call them
"facts."
> Here's why:
>
> If I buy a tub of facts, I wish to be able to dump them out on the floor
> and stack them. I will wish them to interlock with one another in
> interesting ways. I wish to be able to sort them into piles and make
> indexes, concordances, summaries and charts, notwithstanding your
> definition of "a quantitatively substantial part of the information" (the
> term from the bill).
>
> If a "fact" does not survive scrutiny under the simplest of tests of a
fact
> -- the ability to be subjected to public scrutiny -- then it cannot be
> packaged nor advertised as a "fact." Such data may only be called "fact
> products." (I don't know ... should there be a trademark-pending mark next
> to that very pleasant-sounding phrase "fact products" (TM -pending) ??)
>
> The FDA will simply have to become the Food, Drug, and Fact
Administration.
>
> (Do I get to own it, if that happens?).
>
> David Dailey
>
>
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<https://mail2.cni.org/Lists/CNI-COPYRIGHT/>. Received on Thu Feb 26 2004 - 22:40:10 GMT