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

[Brian]

On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 8:29 PM, <WJhonson at aol.com> wrote:

> 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.


This is one argument, but it's not the one they would make. One can also
argue the opposite case; that collection of facts are copyrightable, that
Wikipedia, a project whose goal is to give every person "free access to the
sum of all human knowledge," is putting CAS numbers on all chemicals and
compounds in the encyclopedia, and that this collection constitutes a
significant sub-collection of their intellectual property. Does the relevant
law make it perfectly clear what constitutes a collection? If you remove 1
item from a collection, is it still copyrighted? 10,000 things, 50% of
things, 90% of things? If you want to create a relevant argument, this is
the point you will have to focus on.

On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 9:26 AM, Mathias Schindler <
mathias.schindler at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 4:13 PM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >  "Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) objects to anyone encouraging the
> >  use of SciFinder - and STN - to curate third-party databases or
> >  chemical substance collections, including the one found in Wikipedia."
>
> Well, their subject line was "discourages" and in this case, it is
> "objecting to encourage". So, basically, they are just stating that
> they do not like it, which we should note and continue to do what's
> best for Wikipedia. One might also spend a few hours to talk to them,
> telling that it should be in their own interest that a) the CAS
> numbers are mentioned in the articles and b) the numbers should be
> correct.


I agree that the decision should be what's best for Wikipedia. I disagree
that including information in the encyclopedia against the explicit will of
the creator is that decision.