RE: Not copyrighting facts (RE: copyrighting FACTS???)

["Rick Anderson" <rickand@unr.edu>]

> Rick, you're right, EXCEPT in the case where there is only ONE source of
> the facts, and that source is the protected database.  In such cases,
> there is no independent way of collecting or creating an alternate
> resource using one's own 'sweat.' You may not be worried about these 'rare
> exceptions' to the rule, and I don't know how common they would be, but I
> do worry that they might become more common if the law made them more
> profitable. Laurie

How common are they now?  I can't think of any examples.

But even if the only source for a particular fact were a particular
database, it doesn't seem to me that HR 3261 would grant copyright
protection to that fact.  As I read it, HR 3261 forbids the wholesale
copying of proprietary database content, not the reuse of individual facts
from a database.  For example: let's suppose (against all reason) that the
publisher of a database on rare tropical frogs independently discovered
the existence of a new species and presented the fact of its existence in
his database and nowhere else.  If HR 3261 were enacted, I would still be
within my legal rights to mention that fact in a journal article (or even
in my own database).  I couldn't copy the researcher's entire database and
republish it as my own, but the fact of the frog's existence would be fair
game -- it would not have any copyright protection, even with HR 3261.

Rick

-------------
Rick Anderson
Director of Resource Acquisition
University of Nevada, Reno Libraries
(775) 784-6500 x273
rickand@unr.edu