I was relieved to learn that the H.R. Bill 2652 (Collections of Information Antipiracy Act) was not on a fast track schedule. This will give me some time to write a letter to my Congress people. One short comment on the post from Alan D. Sugarman.
On Oct. 23, 1997, "Alan D. Sugarman" <sugarman[_at_]hyperlaw.com> wrote:
>
> Oh please, Mr. Riolo. The starting point for database protection
> legislation were the measures drafted in the early 90's in Europe.
> These measures made a good faith and pragmatic attempt to balance the
> interests of database providers and consumers. Then, industry lobbyists
> took over and what is proposed now is so overreaching that it is a joke.
> You might read the January 1997 article in the Vanderbilt Law Review by
> Profs. Reichman and Samuelson and then you would realize that the
> elements of a realistic and pragmatic bill have long been known and
> discussed.
As far as I know and as far as I can remember, the "good" guys have not created any good and reasonable bills for the Congress to take. The total absence of such bills will only let the "bad" guys influence the Congress to create the not-so-good bills that will serve their interests.
There are many good ideas (some of which are mentioned in Sugarman's post) floating around. Someone has to embody these ideas in a bill and offer it to the Congress and to the public. This will prevent the "bad" guys from getting the full attention from the Congress. This has not happened yet. Someone has to do it somehow.
If we can not provide a very limited - both in scope and time - protection to the information providers, they will have to resort to the onerous licensing practices, such as shrinkwrap license which will be blessed by the Uniform Commercial Code Article 2B if and when it is approved.
Joseph Pietro Riolo
<riolo[_at_]voicenet.com>
Received on Wed Oct 29 1997 - 00:29:10 GMT
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