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

[Philip Sandifer]

On Mar 8, 2008, at 10:50 AM, geni wrote:
>
> That isn't hate. That is fear. The amount of money in large chemistry
> databases is significant. Wikipedia doesn't threaten that yet but has
> the potential to so do.
>
> The copyright claim is hard to judge. A horrible mixture of database
> rights and more conventional copyright so yeah any legal commentary is
> going to need to be seriously informed.
>
> In terms of open alternatives I supose the IUPAC systematic naming
> scheme would be closest but that is slightly problematical since it
> doesn't always produce consistent results.

It should be noted, ACS is a non-profit professional organization that  
explicitly presents itself as fostering and aiding scholarly pursuits.  
That is to say, the original work is offered for nonprofit educational  
purposes. Our use of it is also for nonprofit educational purposes.  
There would, presumably, need to be some compelling issues to overcome  
that rather large hurdle, no? I mean, given that this is non-profit  
scholarly work on their part, they'd presumably have to establish how  
this is different from any other scholarly referencing.

More insight when the wife gets home in a few hours and can clarify  
the real-world use of CAS numbers.

-Phil