Free Republic

<p>Imagine doing a Google search for a phone number, weather report or sports score. The results page would be filled with links to various sources of information. But what if someone typed in keywords and no results came back?</p> <p>That's the scenario critics are painting of a new bill wending its way through Congress that would let certain companies own facts, and exact a fee to access them.</p>

How the Current Congressional Database Protection Bill Would Go Beyond Current Law, and Why It is Unconstitutional and Misguided Recently, a bill seeking to establish special legal protection for databases was reported to the House floor for consideration. The bill, HR 3261, is called the Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act (DCIMA). If enacted into law, the DCIMA would create civil liability for anyone who, without authorization, makes available in commerce to others a substantial part of the information contained in another person's qualifying database. Qualifying databases must be "generated, gathered, or maintained through a substantial expenditure of...

No one should be able to own facts about other people. Our names and numbers, and also the laws we must obey, should not be property that can be owned by corporations and policed by federal courts. But special interests, such as the Software and Information Industry Association, are seeking new powers to own facts about us and about information we need. After quietly shopping a bill to Members of Congress for several weeks, the Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act was finally introduced last week as H.R. 3261. The Constitution authorizes Congress to create copyrights. But your name,...