Re: Life under stupid Database legislation

From: Bob Stock <bstock[_at_]ucla.edu>
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 07:51:40 -0700

On 6/17/98, Brooks Constantine <bconstan[_at_]indiana.edu> wrote:
>
> Bob Stock <bstock[_at_]ucla.edu> wrote:
> >
> > "No criminal or civil action shall be maintained under this chapter for
> > the extraction or use of all or a substantial part of a collection of
> > information that occurs more than 15 years after the investment of
> > resources that qualified the portion of the collection of information
> > for protection under this chapter that is extracted or used."
> >
> > 1208(c).
>
> But what if the owner of the collection of information makes adjustments to
> the collection of information? Does that not matter? Does the clock start
> ticking only at the initial 'investment of resources?'

And on 6/17/98, Diane Cabell <cabell[_at_]mama-tech.com> wrote:
>
> In theory. However, the Mass General Laws for 1998 may have huge
> segments identical to prior editions. That doesn't mean that resources
> weren't spent to verify the accuracy of the update. Do you think the
> owner of the 1998 edition can enforce against someone who copied an
> identical segment from the 1981 version? After all he's protecting his
> 1998 work. If so, this database right begins to look perpetual to me.

I would think that the phrase "investment of resources" in 1208(c) that would apply to the portion extracted would have to be read in light of the main paragraph that prohibits extraction, which includes the word "substantial" when describing the amount of resources. However, I could be wrong about that as someone will no doubt make the argument that the omission of the word "substantial" must have some meaning. Even if I were right, "substantial" is a term open to argument as to how much has to be spent to qualify as substantial. Nonetheless, in addition to the interpretation difficulties here, I also think a court would be bothered by an argument that permitted updates to continuously make old information extendable. In other words, if somebody added a wholly new segment to the database, that would be one thing, but protecting information when all that was done was to verify its accuracy or make minor updates would be troublesome.

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Bob Stock <bstock[_at_]ucla.edu>
UCLA School of Law '98
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/1206/

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Received on Thu Jun 18 1998 - 14:50:22 GMT