[Foundation-l] Info/Law blog: Using Wikisource as an Alternative Open Access Repository for Legal Scholarship

[Ray Saintonge]

Stephen Bain wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 5:27 AM, Parker Higgins<parkerhiggins at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> Except google isn't asserting any kind of copyright control over these
>> books, they're just not making it convenient to download them in your
>> preferred format.  Maybe not The Right Thing, but not as boneheaded as suing
>> a party who reprints public domain material, as was the case in Feist v.
>> Rural (the supreme court case you mention.)
>>     
> They want people to use their service. Fair enough, given that the
> scanning and OCRing happened on their dime.
>
>   
How does that give them any special rights?  There are no database 
protection laws in the US, and sweat-of-the-brow has been rejected as a 
basis for new copyrights.

Ec