03-08-2004
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TS Special Forces
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Location: Brussels, Belgium
Member since: Feb 2002, 5,821 posts
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New bill proposal : making facts property
Here's a piece of the article :
Quote:
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?
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.
Ostensibly, the Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act (HR3261) makes it a crime for anyone to copy and redistribute a substantial portion of data collected by commercial database companies and list publishers. But critics say the bill would give the companies ownership of facts -- stock quotes, historical health data, sports scores and voter lists. The bill would restrict the kinds of free exchange and shared resources that are essential to an informed citizenry, opponents say.
The House Judiciary Committee approved the bill and the commerce committee is expected to review it on Thursday.
The bill's biggest backers are the Software and Information Industry Association; Reed Elsevier, which owns the LexisNexis database; and Westlaw, the biggest publisher of legal databases.
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Read the rest here -> Hands Off! That Fact Is Mine
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New bill proposal : making facts property
