Re: Life under stupid Database legislation

From: Diane Cabell <cabell[_at_]mama-tech.com>
Date: Thu, 09 Jul 1998 08:22:35 -0400

Brooks Constantine <bconstan[_at_]indiana.edu> wrote:
>
> After rereading the proposed legislation a bit more carefully this
> time I realized that under the 'product or service' definition in
> Sec. 1201(5) where it is listed that a prod. or serv. does NOT include
> anything having to do with the routing, addressing, forwarding,
> transmitting or storing of digital online communications or proviing or
> receiving access to connections for digital online commuications.....
>
> SO it shouldn't matter if NIS owns its databases... because they
> apparently aren't covered/protected under the legislation.

Maybe. The committee reports suggest a somewhat different purpose for this section; that it was designed to protect the use of hypertext links.

Diane Cabell, Esq.
http://www.mama-tech.com/

Fausett, Gaeta & Lund, LL.P.
21 School Street, 3rd Floor
Boston, MA 02108 US

Committee Report - House Rpt. 105-525 - COLLECTIONS OF INFORMATION ANTIPIRACY ACT at http://thomas.loc.gov/ SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS
2. SECTION TWO--PROHIBITION AGAINST MISAPPROPRIATION Section 1201 provides several definitions. It defines `collection of information' to mean information that has been collected and has been organized for the purpose of bringing discrete items of information together in one place or through one source so that users may access them. The definition is intended to avoid sweeping too broadly, particularly in the digital environment, where all types of material when in digital form could be viewed as collections of information. It makes clear that the statute protects what has been traditionally thought of as a database, involving a collection made by gathering together multiple discrete items with the purpose of forming a body of material that consumers can use as a resource in order to obtain the items themselves. This is in contrast to elements of information combined and ordered in a logical progression or other meaningful way in order to tell a story, communicate a message, represent something, or achieve a result. Thus, a novel would not be considered a `collection of information' even if it appears in electronic form, and therefore could be described as made up of elements of information that have been put together in some logical way. Similarly, material such as interface specifications would not ordinarily be covered, although a collection of such specifications created in order to provide consumers access to the individual specifications could be covered. The term `in one place or through one source' denotes the availability of the information to consumers in a single material object or through a specific address, location or other source. It does not require that all of the information be present at any particular physical site. Received on Thu Jul 09 1998 - 12:27:55 GMT

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