[Roscoe]

The proposed bill would provide a legal umbrella for publishers of factual information such as courtroom decisions

Court decisions as private property?

[TomGuy]

This is the most nutso, lawyer-driven legislation I've ever heard of.

Depending on how the law is written, it would be a goldmine for lawyers and a nightmare for any company, large or small, that using any kind of database.

"You stole my phone numbers database."
"No, I didn't. Prove it."
"Lawsuit, lawsuit."

Copyrighting factual data is a ridiculous concept.

I think I'll issue copyrights effective now, immediately--and this posting gives "published" notice to that effect:

I hereby copyright {these copyright notices are effective 2003} all the following factual data:

all latitudes and longitutes
all street names
all factual data regarding all states within the Unites States of America.
all factual data regarding astronomical terms, measures, and definitions
all factual data regarding nations of planet earth.....

[The concept of copyrighting databases hinges on moronism, a term I also copyright.]

[supercat]

What is needed, IMHO, is a new classification of copyrights for non-original works. Such copyrights should be for a comparatively limitted term (e.g. 5 years), but would provide some incentive for people to compile factual information which would otherwise require too much time and effort.

I would apply a similar copyright, btw, to certain types of publication of public-domain materials. For example, if someone finds what is believed to be the only existing copy of a movie made in 1919, under today's copyright law there is a disincentive to allowing any unmodified copy of that film to see the light of day, since the person who has the film could release a modified version with a 95+ year copyright but--if the original got out--the person would have to compete in the marketplace against the free public-domain version. IMHO that's a serious defect (actually one of many) in copyright law that needs to be fixed.

[J. Byron]

"We think this is already dealt with under license and contract law, and there's no reason to extend beyond that,"

The main reason they want copyright law: Contract law does not apply to third parties nor those who do not "sign" the contract. Copyright law provides for statutory damages, and also provides some international coverage via the Berne Convention.

Happy Birthday America!

[xm177e2]

I think this could have serious implications for FR (if copyright law is expanded strongly, it would give more credence to lawsuits against this website).

[weegee]

The lawmakers decided decades ago against outlawing the trafficking of personal information. Today we have credit histories, house price/tax info, and even SS#, parents' maiden names, and birthdate information being sold and resold to advertisers and worse.

The junkmailers and telemarketers got what they wanted. We now pay for it with 27million cases of identity theft.

This proposed legislation would not appear to outlaw that.

Wake me when Congress is going to do something for the citizens. I could care less if someone is bitching that they paid for private information to compile a database and then someone else bought and resold it verbatim ("They even kept my entry field names, "waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa").

Outlaw the trafficking of such info to begin with. Force interested parties to log their presence at the court house if they want to look up your housing information. Force them to make repeated requests to the Driver's License board. There are legal routes to go to acquire this information. Allowing private interests to compile up and resell such databases should not have been tolerated.

The existance of such databases (without the outlawing of the sale of such information) means that even if future laws restrict public offices from providing private information, someone somewhere will already have it on file ready to sell (legally).

[Paul C. Jesup]

So let me get this straight, they want to pass law the makes it illegal to copy anything the is NOT copyrighted.

This is just another excuse to kill the internet and take more of our freedoms away.

I always wondered what the oppisite extreme of book burning was. Now I know.

[taxcontrol]

In my opinion, all intellectual property protections should be limited to 20 years from the date of granting the protection.

Trademarks should be protected for the life of the owner or operation of the business, plus 20 years.

[TomServo]

FYI...

[CodeMonkey]

When will the copyright expansionists get the firing squad that they and all fascists so richly deserve for their crimes against America?