Re: HR 2652

On 7/8/98, Brooks Constantine <bconstan[_at_]indiana.edu> wrote:
>
> According to the people at NSI, they do indeed own the databases.. not
> the NSF and not SAIC. but my question is.. is does this matter to the
> flow of information across the Internet? Could things somehow be held
> up? I don't know enough about the structure of the Internet to know if
> my question is way off-base or if it isn't.
>
> Another point... would that make NSI akin to West Publishing? Because
> they were/are both 'parties that have been retained by the government
> for this specific task to which they have added value to the original
> databases' (paraphrase of the House Record -pg. 17)... I understand
> how West's monopoly on the published federal court opinions is
> detrimental. but how is NSI's monopoly on the .com/.edu/etc.
> databases?
>

My impression is that NSI has relinquished claims to own a copyright in the DNS listings, but of course that wouldn't preclude them from asserting a new database right if Congress creates one.

The DNS list is a strong actual network -- anyone who wants to run a registry must be able to interoperate with it. If NSI owns it, it can deny potential competitors access to the list (and therefore to connectivity with those already on the Net). The effect of intellectual property ownership in this case would be to effectively preclude competition.

Mark A. Lemley
Professor of Law, University of Texas School of Law Of Counsel, Fish & Richardson, P.C.
mlemley[_at_]mail.law.utexas.edu
Note CHANGED office phone: 512/232-1342

Information on UT's Intellectual Property program: http://www.utexas.edu/law/acadaff/intelprop/

My publications list: http://www.law.utexas.edu/lemley/pubs.htm Received on Thu Jul 09 1998 - 15:12:32 GMT