Re: copyrighting of numbers

On 7/05/98, Bob Stock <bstock[_at_]ucls.edu> wrote:
>
> On 5/6/98, JQ Johnson <jqj[_at_]darkwing.uoregon.edu> wrote:
> >
> > the creation of a physical (computerized) database requires quite
> > a number of creative decisions even after the complete set of
> > raw data has been identified
>
> You, though, are arguing that the database structure (as if it were a
> program) is copyrightable. It would seem to me, if one puts aside the
> resulting compilation for a moment, that the only way *that* would be
> copyrightable is if you argue that there are literary components to the
> database structure and that those components, just like program
> instructions, are copyrightable.

As a professional database analyst/programmer with nearly a decade's experience, I'd have to concur with JQ on the "creativity" involved in the planning, development and optimisation of anything beyond a trivial database, and note that this is generally considered "obvious" within the IT industry.

For example, my employer chose to market a Social Work database system I had developed for them (encouraged by the significant number of other Hospitals who were asking for the system) and, despite the fact that it proved necessary to have the user-interface and reporting components (ie. both the Input and the Output) re-written for a GUI, the original database design itself was still considered the primary component of value in the system, and my own involvement (although I was nothing more than the designer of the underlying database) of significant importance in the re-development.

However, and most importantly, when the new system shipped, it contained heavily detailed Technical Documentation and a Data Dictionary which fully revealed the structure and inter-relationships within the database itself, both to facilitate ad hoc reporting and end-user customization, and assist the development of feeder-systems and interfaces to existing data sources. There was no element of Trade Secrecy involved, and no copyright in the database itself was assumed or intended--quite the contrary. Especially in a vital area like Public Health, the development of data collection standards and systems which, if not implemented in exactly the same way, at least deal with the same data and data-structures, is in everyone's best interests: developer and end-user alike. Interoperability is far more valuable than proprietary solutions, which are frequently the curse of database reporting in a multi-vendor environment.

In summary, the idea that _copyright_ should adhere in the design of databases strikes me as both technically ignorant, in that it fails to recognise that data standards and interoperability are of critical importance to the effective exchange of information, and profoundly avaricious, in that it doesn't give a shit.

CYa,
JEREMY Jeremy G. Byrne
<jeremy[_at_]iz.org> Received on Sat May 09 1998 - 11:02:29 GMT