A database can be copyrighted, so perhaps it is the collection of prices that is copyrighted, not a single number of which you have independent knowledge.
This development has raised all kinds of concerns within scientific research - how is anyone supposed to be able to use numbers like the thermal conductivity of metals in a paper if you have to prove you didn't get it out of a database, but have to measure it anew each time you need it?
It was, of course, demanded by industries like telephone directories, and the potential devastation of scientific publication is so total that everyone I know is simply ignoring it.
John Sankey
<bf250[_at_]freenet.carleton.ca>
Received on Tue Apr 28 1998 - 00:43:13 GMT
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