http://wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk/blogs/murrayrust/?p=997
They have a specific hate-on for Wikipedia:
"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."
The claim is that "CAS numbers are copyright CAS/ACS who have the legal right to regulate their use - as above." I find this idea highly dubious myself, though I wonder what countries it would legally fly in. Particularly given that "CAS identifiers have come to be accepted as a primary identifier system for chemistry."
Anyone here have informed legal commentary?
Also (and this is why I've posted it to foundation-l) - anyone interested in a bit of organisational outreach to work out what can be done about this?
- d.