[10850] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Sacramento Bee on WIPO treaty (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (James Love)
Mon Nov 25 21:13:12 1996
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1996 17:41:34 -0600 (CST)
From: James Love <love@tap.org>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
This is the text of a Sunday, November 17, 1996 editorial from the
Sacramento Bee, opposing the WIPO database treaty. The editorial may
be redistributed, so long as it is not changed, and it is credited to the
Sacramento Bee. Jamie
Main Editorial, Sunday, November 17, 1996, Page 4, Forum Section
Sacramento Bee
Locking up the facts
Defining intellectual property in the fast-changing digital world taxes
existing laws and systems in the best of cases. That's the only possible
explanation for official U.S. government support of a pending
international treaty that establishes what critics are calling "the least
balanced and most potentially anti-competitive intellectual property
rights ever created."
Database publishers companies that assemble computerized collections of
facts such as court opinions and enhance them for consumer use want more
protection for their efforts, even though they often use information from
the public domain. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1991 that
copyright law doesn't cover things such as telephone white pages, the
database publishers took their case overseas.
Firms led by the Canadian legal publisher West Publishing convinced the
European Union to adopt a sweeping definition of their work and the
protection it deserves. Despite almost no widespread consideration here,
publishers also won endorsement by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office,
and that approval is the official U.S. position on a treaty now pending
before the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva.
The treaty would create ownership above and beyond copyright of "text,
sounds, images, numbers, facts or data representing any other matter or
substance" so long as the publisher has "substantial investment in the
collection, assembly, verification, organization or presentation of the
contents." Initial analysis suggests the baseball leagues, for example,
would then "own" facts such as batting averages; financial markets,
judicial decisions, even weather reports could be affected. A Berkeley
scholar calls it "the end of the public domain."
The treaty has received almost no debate within the U.S. government; there
have been no public hearings on the issue, or on companion legislation
introduced into the U.S. House last term. Some discussion apparently
recently began within the Clinton administration, but meanwhile the
prospect of an international treaty continues to advance; WIPO has
scheduled the treaty negotiations for Dec. 2-20.
Every major library association in the country has asked the
administration and Congress to abandon this proposal and to open a debate
on the proper role of regulation. So have the National Academy of
Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of
Medicine.
That protest should be joined by everyone who values the open exchange of
information that is the foundation of communication in an open society.
There is a long tradition in the United States of allowing for the
copyright of expression, but not of facts. This attempt to redefine that
standard for the narrow commercial interest of a few should not be allowed
to sneak into international law with little debate or study.
-30-
