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

Timothy Phillips <hrothgar[_at_]telepath.com> wrote:
>
> As others have pointed out, copyright in databases protects
> selection, coordination (for example, cross-references) and
> arrangement of data. No new law is needed for collections of
> information that are protected in this way. Getting a datum
> right is not "originality" for copyright purposes. Identifying
> relationships among data items, sorting items in an original way
> that makes them easy to use and understand, and eliminating
> irrelevant information can be acts of original authorship.

This is the best statement of what it was I was trying to say. My impression is that such cleaning, relationship-drawing (say, assigning a unique entity key), etc., would be the original and creative content of a database.

Bruce Hayden's comments that the plaintiff, and not the court, erred in directing inquiry are also well taken.

> Is the database bill necessary ? My answer is, "No and maybe."
<snip>
> But the database bill presently in congress is an alarmist
> over-reaction to a problem whose existence has not clearly been
> demonstrated. The proponents want to create sweat-of-the-brow
> protection for everything that can possibly be construed as a
> "collection of information."

Which I wasn't proposing, and which I also find disturbing.

> A reasonable misappropriation approach might be to protect the
> first-comer's first-to-market advantage with a short lock-out
> term (no longer than a year) and confine itself to protecting
> "actual" markets against quantitatively substantial copying.

This is interesting and begins to approach some of Pamela Samuelson's suggestions for software protection. There are also proposals (and existing examples) in the "free software" field of dual-licensing arrangements in which an initial license forbids redistribution of source or object code, but is reverted to a "public license" which allows such redistribution after a year or two. One such proposal is termed the "Delayed Public License" -- it's not been codified, but the idea is outlined as described. For reference, see the GNU GPL (http://www.fsf.org/)

> Maybe it would not stretch misappropriation law too much to
> presume a sort of time-sensitivity if a second-comer wants to
> follow the first-comer to market within a few months.

Look to M Nimmer's comments on CONTU (commission reviewing (C) reforms for 1976 Act). Among his fears was that copyright might become a general misappropriation lawn -- which he felt unwise and possibly unconstitutional.

Which makes me ask, as a non-lawyer, where is misappropriation law codified? I assume it's not strictly federal law and is based on both state and federal statute? Is it covered in the UCC?

-- 
Karsten M. Self (kmself[_at_]ix.netcom.com)

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