🚀 go-pugleaf

>I haven't read all of this thread, but it appears that some people are
>thinking of selling their databases, and other are concerned over the
>copyright status of the references or biblliographies they produce.
>
>While I am most definitely not a lawyer, nor am I an expert, I do believe
>that in the US it is not possible to copyright the contents of such data-
>bases.  (In Europe the situation is quite diferent.)  You can copyright
>the presentation of the data in a database but not the information
>content.  So I don't think you would need to negogiate anything in order
>to use them.  This rule applies to most complations of data.  I remember
>one court case where somebody got hold of the phone book for a small city,
>copied the information into their own book, and sold it in competition
>with the original directory (naturally the second book was far cheaper.)
>The courts held that this was not an infringment of the copyright.
>
>So, if you get hold of an electronic database, you can buy a copy, copy
>the records into your own database (using your own format), and sell it!
>No doubt databases will not be sold, but licenced for the particular use
>of producing bibliographies only, and worded in strict legaleze to prevent
>such wholesale copying.
>
>Does anybody know for sure what the law is in the US?  And what about
>elsewhere?
>
>Wayne Pollock (The MAD Scientist)
>Internet:       pollock@eggo.csee.usf.edu

I suppose the case you are referring to is Feist Publications v. Rural
Telephone Service Co., 11 S. CT. 1282 (1991). The US Supreme Court here
explicitly reversed what was thought to be an established doctrine by which
copyright was available on the basis of the mere effort of compiling (the
"sweat-of-the-brow" doctrine). This doctrine is illustrated in such cases
as National Business List v. Dun & Bradstreet, 552 F. Supp. 89 (1982, N.D.
Ill.) and West Publishing v. Mead Data Central, 799 F.2d 1219 (8th
Cir.,1986). Feist requires originality in the form of at least minimal
creativity on the part of the compiler. Merely putting things in
alphabetical order (as Rural Telephone did) is not enough.

Contrary to what you believe, before Feist, American lawyers would probably
have held that one could copyright data bases. After Feist, this is indeed
uncertain. Where abstracts are involved, I should think that the Feist test
would have been met and hence that the data base would be copyrightable
under American law.

In Europe (indeed almost everywhere outside the United States) copyright
need not be requested but arises automatically on an original work. But the
originality test is generally more stringent than under English, Canadian
or American law. In Germany for instance, not all computer programs are
necessarily subject to copyright (some are too trivial for that). A
European council directive on computer programs obliges EC-member states to
bring their legislation closer together. For data bases, another
EC-directive (15 April 1992) obliges member countries to adopt legislation
setting up a special right (separate from whatever copyright may exist in
the data base) protecting data base holders against unfair extraction and
re-use of all or part of the base.

The Feist-decision tends to move the American originality requirement for
copyright closer to what the Europeans conceive originality to be.

I am doubtful that you can legally, as you say, "if you get hold of an
electronic database, you can buy a copy, copy the records into your own
database (using your own format), and sell it!" Especially, where abstracts
or other brain work is involved.

Besides copyright law, the contract with the facility holding the data base
from which you copy may also prohibit it.

American copyright law (sct 107 of the Act) provides that you may copy a
copyrighted work, under the fair use doctrine, if it is (inter alia) for
"teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship or
research.". To determine whether such use is still fair, courts are
directed to look (inter alia) at the "amount and substantiality" of what
you copy as part of the whole and at the effect of that use on "the
potential market for or value of the copyrighted work".

EJAN MACKAAY