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W I R E D N E W S
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Bills Would Fence Off the Facts
by Oscar S. Cisneros
A coalition of big money data vendors is pushing database protection bills through the
US Congress that could fundamentally disrupt the basic functions of the Internet and
radically alter how information can be shared.
There are two competing bills that would protect data compilers by prohibiting the
duplication of their databases. Critics fear the more restrictive of the two,
Collections of Information Antipiracy Act (HR354), would make criminals of companies
that collect and aggregate data -- companies like Yahoo and Amazon.com.
Also: Publisher Must Lay Down the Law
"The beauty of the Internet is that for the first time you have this huge engine for
finding and aggregating information -- and HR 354 sort of throws a wrench in the
works," said Jonathan Band, an attorney specializing in intellectual property at
Morrison and Foerster.
The measure gives ownership of lists of facts -- like CD prices or best-seller lists
-- to a company or an individual that collects them, Band said. Even collections of
links to other sites could be claimed as intellectual property, barring their use by
anybody without a licensing agreement.
A service like Best Book Buys, which canvasses the Web for book-price comparisons,
could face criminal charges for using an unwilling company's price quotes, Band said.
Even Internet service providers and Web site hosts like GeoCities could face huge
liabilities if their users pirate a database.
Until now, the Constitution has prohibited the copyrighting of facts. Critics charge
that the bill would let anyone who claims to have compiled the facts actually own them.
"The basic notion is that you give the author a limited monopoly in his expression in
exchange for his dedication of the facts and ideas contained in his work to the
public," Band said. "This is the constitutional philosophy underlying intellectual
property, and this bill tries to subvert that philosophy."
But database owners complain that protection for compilations -- which can be
enormously costly to assemble -- is thin, thanks to a 1991 US Supreme Court "We have
no law in the United States that protects databases," said Dan Duncan, a spokesman for
the Software Information Industry Association, a group of more than 1,400 software
and content-data vendors. "We need a law to protect ourselves."
Not all database vendors want Draconian protection, however. Powerful organizations
like Bloomberg, Harvard University, and Lycos (the parent company of Wired News)
advocate a balanced approach to legislation and want just a bit more protection than
what the Constitution currently affords.
"Databases are items of commerce in their own right and are critical tools for
facilitating electronic commerce, research, and education endeavors," a group of 132
signatories recently said in a They support a bill like Consumer and Investor Access
to Information Act of 1999 (HR 1858), which would prevent the outright piracy of
entire databases but would still allow the reuse of the underlying facts, provided
they are used in new, innovative ways.
Experts are watching developments in Congress closely. The outcome could upset the
careful balance struck by the Founding Fathers between the creator's need for an
incentive and the ability of future minds to build on his ideas.
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