VA-Jackson-Roane-L Archives

From:
Subject: [VA-Jac-Roa] (no subject)
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 19:14:09 EST

Read this is important

Subj: Legislative mayhem on genealogy? 
Date: 3/21/2004 1:22:15 PM Eastern Standard Time

Proposed Legislation Would Wreak Havoc for Genealogists and others,
of course! 

A new bill before the U.S. Congress proposes to overturn one of the
most fundamental concepts of the present copyright laws. If passed,
facts would become copyrighted for the first time in U.S. history.

The Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act
(HR3261) would make it a crime for anyone to copy and redistribute a
substantial portion of data collected by commercial database
companies and list publishers. At first, that sounds like a good
idea. However, a bit more thought shows that nobody would be able to
republish stock quotes, historical health data, sports scores, or
voter lists. In fact, a lot of genealogy information could not be
republished.

If passed, Google and all the other search engines would be crippled,
probably driven out of business. These are online databases that
collect information, or facts, from other online sites so that the
user can quickly find the information they seek. If Google and the
others are not allowed to collect facts that are now copyrighted, how
will they be able to index the Web for you?

Art Brodsky, spokesman for public advocacy group Public Knowledge,
says the bill would let anyone drop a fact into a database or a
collection of materials and claim monopoly rights to it. This would
contradict the core principle of the Copyright Act, which states that
mere information and ideas cannot be protected works.

Let's say that a commercial genealogy service such as Ancestry.com or
OneGreatFamily.com publishes the fact that your
great-great-grandparents had a child named John. Once that "fact" has
been published by any commercial service, that original publisher
would hold the copyright on the fact, and no one else would be
allowed to publish it again. The Family History Library, the New
England Historic Genealogical Society, Genealogical Publishing
Company, and others would be prohibited from publishing that
information again in any of their online or printed works.  In fact,
private individuals would similarly be barred from publishing the
information in their own derivative works. If a commercial site
publishes a fact about your ancestors, you would not be able to place
that fact on your own Web site or in any book or report that you give
to others.

The language in this proposed legislation contradicts the core
principle of the present copyright acts, which state that mere
information and ideas cannot be protected works.

You can read more about this proposed legislation in Wired News at
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,62500,00.html

======

Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 16:11:08 EST
From:
To:
Subject: [Keller] Ref to......Proposed Legislation Would Wreak Havoc for
Genealogists

This was e-mailed to me............. We all need to know about this kind
of Genealogy info too.

HR3261 has been amended somewhat while in committee.  Here is the current
wording of interest to us as genealogists.  If you wish to make your voice
heard on the legislation find your legislator on this listing

http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html


      /SEC. 4. PERMITTED ACTS./

      / (a) INDEPENDENTLY GENERATED OR GATHERED INFORMATION- This Act
shall not restrict any person from--/

            / (1) independently generating or gathering information obtained
by means other than extracting it from a database generated, gathered, or
maintained by another person; and/

            / (2) making that information available in commerce./

      / (b) ACTS OF MAKING AVAILABLE IN COMMERCE BY NONPROFIT SCIENTIFIC
OR RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS- Subject to section 9, the making available in
commerce of a substantial part of a database by a nonprofit scientific or
research institution, including an employee or agent of such institution
acting within the scope of such employment or agency, for nonprofit
scientific or research purposes shall not be prohibited by section 3 if
the court determines that the making available in commerce of the
information in the database is reasonable under the circumstances, taking
into consideration the customary practices associated with such uses of
such database by nonprofit scientific or research institutions and other
factors that the court determines relevant./

      / (c) HYPERLINKING- Nothing in this Act shall restrict the act of
hyperlinking of one online location to another or the providing of a
reference or pointer (including such reference or pointer in a
      directory or index) to a database./

      / (d) NEWS REPORTING- Nothing in this Act shall restrict any person
from making available in commerce information for the primary purpose of
news reporting, including news and sports gathering, dissemination, and
comment, unless the information is time sensitive and has been gathered by
a news reporting entity, and making available in commerce the information
is part of a consistent pattern engaged in for the purpose of direct
competition.

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