IP: Database Bill Raises Constitutional Flags

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Newsgroups: comp.society.privacy
Subject: Database Bill Raises Constitutional Flags
Date: 13 Feb 1999 16:57:38 GMT

http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,32085,00.html

Database bill raises constitutional flags

By Courtney Macavinta
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
February 8, 1999, 4 a.m. PT

Congress will tackle one of the most important issues of the
Information Age this session--whether database owners should get
historic new protections for the public facts they compile and
resell.

<snip>...

Some foes worry the new law could even apply to the Internet white
pages directory for ".com," ".net," and ".org" sites--meaning domain
name registrar Network Solutions could essentially copyright the
entire Net. However, the act does attempt to prevent this scenario
by exempting from the protections "information gathered, organized,
or maintained to address, route, forward, transmit, or store digital
online communications or provide or receive access to connections
for digital online communications."

Still, if Netizens don't pay attention to this critical debate,
they could face an electronic toll gate each time they try to access
information assembled and indexed by a third party, opponents of
the bill contend.

"We're pretty scared. The way we believe it will affect end users
is that commercial database access fees, which already are high,
will go higher," said Dan Burk, an associate law professor at Seton
Hall University, who focuses on cyberspace issues. "Any collection
of information that has value, that someone has put effort into
creating, could be covered by this."

U.S. courts have consistently held that database compilation isn't
protected by copyright, according to Burk.

In Feist Publications Inc. vs. Rural Tel. Service Company, the
Supreme Court held that a phone company's white pages directory
could not be copyrighted, and therefore other entities could
duplicate and repackage the names, addresses, and telephone numbers
found in public phone books. But Coble's bill would create a
brand-new form of intellectual property protections for collections
of information that have never existed in the United States before,
Burk said, and could help database creators get past the Feist
ruling.

<snip>...

---end forwarded text