Re: Databases, creativity, and copyright -- what's missing is wrong?

This is in reply to Kasten Self's longish post which I won't quote in full, but which in essence said that verifying and cleaning up data in database amounts to creativity. This was in response to having just read the Feist decision.

I think a closer reading of Feist would have made this post unnecessary. The Feist court clearly said that copyright does not protect sweat of the brow or industrious collection - which is the nature of information verification. The court did not say such work was without value, just that it wasn't protected by copyright. The Court clearly differentiated between creative and mechanical activity, and while cleaning up a database is a lot of work, it is essentially mechanical in nature.

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S. Warwick
swarwick[_at_]sprynet.com