[WikiEN-l] CAS Discourages Using SciFinder to Help Curate Wikipedia

[WJhonson at aol.com]

When you are simply copying a number, you are however, not copying a  
database or compilation.  In this sense you don't even rise to the level of  
unfair-use as in the case you cited of Rural Telephone.  There, they stated  not that 
they had the right to *each* name, but rather that the amount of  copying (the 
entire list) constituted unfair use.
 
If the case had merely been about copying a name, it never would have made  
it past the lowest court.
 
As regards this particular case, there is precedent that purely  
mechanically-created numbers can not be copyright.  As in the case where  Thomas West 
erroneously claims a copyright to the page numbers of their  edition.  Patently 
silly on its face, page numbering shows no  creativity.
 
The bar set by the Supreme Court is that the copyright claim must stand on  
some level of creativity.  Regardless of that, copying simply segments of  text 
falls under fair-use.  The CAS would have to create the  ridiculous position 
that the number itself and each number individually,  constitute an entire 
work and that that work is original and creative advancing  some art, therefore 
copying it would be unfair as you'd be copying the entire  work.
 
I doubt we have anything to worry about in using their numbers in our  work.
 
Will Johnson



**************It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms, and advice on AOL Money & 
Finance.      (http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolprf00030000000001)