The license terms are irrelevant to whether action lies under 2652. Assuming both that the CD database met the bill's investment threshold, the scientist's use of those 500 records is a transformative one. A 1% use for scholarly purposes would not be a violation even under the old "sweat" copyright. In short, there's no substantial taking.
Second, how is the database provider going to meet its burden of proving harm to its market? Again, highly unlikely. Finally, given the use made of the data, I would think that a court would be predisposed to finding against the database provider in any event.
If 2B passes (and arguably even if it doesn't) then the license may control. You're assuming, though, that a producer of social science data could remain in business while: (1) selling a product while at the same time prohibiting its use and (2) squandering its fincances paying lawyers to sue individual consumers for writing journal articles. I don't think your consumer/scientist has anything to worry about, in reality.
Cheers.
Chris
Christopher A. Mohr
<chrismohr[_at_]sprintmail.com>
Received on Thu Jun 25 1998 - 18:30:46 GMT
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