Forum Moderators: not2easy
Can I pull this info from business directories? There are numerous "yellow pages" type directories, and they all have the same business listings, but do I need to get permission somehow? Or can I just use the list from the yellow pages?
The only data I would be using is business name and phone number. It seems to me this really belongs to the business itself and cannot really be copyrighted by the yellow pages directories.
does that make sense? i think i stated it correctly... as always, YMMV, IANAL, and IMHO ;)
They are trying to make it illegal to copy someone's database. They even want to secure ownership of your own perosnal data (name, address, phone, etc). here's a recent link:
There are very large corporate powers trying hard to secure their listings as copyrighted. It's a horrible mess of an idea, which ensures only bad laws will come out of it, but basically they want to say that if they did alot of work to make it and maintain it, and you didn't, then you can't steal it (even if they post it in plain text on the web). Protectionism at it's finest, combined with tech ignorance.
So better scrape those CofC directories now while you have the chance ;-)
If there was ever a time to write your representatives this might be it.
I don't think this issue is getting the attention it deserves here and elsewhere. Everyone would be wise to follow the link in the above post and read up on the DCIMA and what it means to us.
As it protects the investment that goes into creating a database, and protects unauthorised extraction, it would seem that this protection is to the benefit of webmasters as it gives a webmaster further control over content and how to license that content.
Just to be pedantic: the right doesn't protect _facts_ it protects _facts-compiled-into-a database_: that's very important because it doesn't prevent anyone else from "doing the work" to assemble the same _facts_ into another _facts-compiled-into-a-database_.
To take a simple example: take a list of a million interesting numbers compiled into a set of books that are known facts. To put those numbers into a database requires time and effort to scan in the numbers, store them in SQL tables, yadda yadda yadda. This right would prevent someone else from taking the content from your SQL tables, but wouldn't prevent them from going and scanning in the content from the books themselves. Seems fair to me that you should get protection for your hard work in this way.
Having said that, I don't fully understand all the arguments so don't have a position yet - just making observations.
Consider any online business listing (of any kind - including RSS streams).
Almost any website can claim a host of lost revenue streams (e.g. ad impressions income) whenever data is extracted from their public webpage (since every subsequent viewing of that data, no longer on their site, is sans ad revenue or traffic generation, etc...). Since this bill opens almost everything to debate, it is a nightmare for webmasters/business owners.
Your example about "extracting from public webpage": two points are (a) the legislation sets a high bar in using the word "substantial", (b) the webmaster (who incurs the cost of assembling and running the database) seems to be the one that can benefit from this by enforcing rights against third parties who do extract substantial portions.
I'm yet to be convinced that there are any problems: 6 years of similar rights in the EU have not shown there to be any problems either.
