Re: Ah, wonderful copyright

Simon Spero wrote:
> 3) The legal theory behind the registration was  that of "Sweat of the
> brow", which held that the mere collecting  of data was  sufficient to
> permit  granting of a compilation copyright.  (Franklin 84-85).
>
That's odd, because I was taught in my copyright class that 'sweat of
the brow' was no longer a valid legal concept in US copyright law, and
did not serve to justify copyright. Of course I'm not a lawyer either.
But that goes with your next point 4, that "copyright in a factual
compilation is thin", regardless of how much sweat was put into it.

> 4) The landmark  case on the scope of compilation copyright in "mere
> facts"
> is Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340
> (1991).   In this case, the Supreme Court held that "[...]copyright in a
> factual compilation is thin. Notwithstanding a valid copyright, a
> subsequent
> compiler remains free to use the facts contained in another's
> publication to
> aid in preparing a competing work, so long as the competing work does not
> feature the same selection and arrangement." (Feist, supra).  Indeed,
> "[t]his result is neither unfair nor unfortunate. It is the means by
> which
> copyright advances the progress of science and art." (Feist, supra)
>
> 5)  Standard arrangements based on alphabetic, numerical, or
> lexicographic
> ordering are public domain. (Feist, supra).  Exhaustive enumeration
> exhibits
> insufficient creativity in selection to pass the constitutional
> requirement
> of creativity (Feist, supra).
>
> 6) Congress has repeatedly considered creating a   sui generis right of
> protection; these attempts have not repeatedly failed.  The ALA has
> strongly
> opposed these efforts - details of their work can be found online at
> http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/woissues/copyrightb/dbprotection/databaseprotection.cfm
>
> .
>
> 7)    Assessment Technologies of WI, LLC v. WireData Inc, 350 F.3d 640 (7
> Cir. 2003) suggests that under the doctorine of copyright misuse, some
> provisions of OCLC's licensing might  not survive a public records
> request.
>
> ------------------
> Editorial:
>
> OCLC's real asset has never been the data it holds.  OCLC has two  real
> assets are the people;  people like Jay Jordan, Lorcan Dempsey, Thom
> Hickey
> and Stuart Weibel; and the daily reminder of the legacy of Fred
> Kilgour that
> it is their duty to uphold.
>
> If you look at the direction that OCLC has been taking under Jay
> Jordan, it
> seems clear that his underlying strategy is based on recruiting top
> staff,
> creating new and innovative services, and bringing them to  much wider
> audiences;  if protecting the database was what mattered, Open WorldCat
> could never have happened.
>
> For  what is essentially a private  Memory Institution that does not yet
> have an endowment big enough to guarantee survival for the deep time
> horizons such institutions must have, keeping revenue flowing is
> critical.
> Once new sources of income are in place, I would be suprised if OCLC
> didn't
> move to open worldcat even more.
>
> Simon // Visualize Whirled Cats
>

--
Jonathan Rochkind
Sr. Programmer/Analyst
The Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
410.516.8886
rochkind (at) jhu.edu