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

[geni]

On 08/03/2008, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> ACS is a non-profit. This won't help their egregious claim.

Even non-profits need income sources . Chem abs funds rather a lot of ACS.


>  Pantone manage the trick of owning a proprietary industry standard and
>  claiming a monopoly rent on it ... but what's tolerable for commercial
>  printing is less reasonable when trying to claim a tax on the pursuit
>  of pure scientific knowledge.

If they cared about that they would never have challenged pubchem.

Tax? taxes are generally meant to be affordable (just about). Chemical
Abstracts is increasingly beyond the means of many universities.
Ironically the switch to an electronic version which made it rather
more useful appears to have made the price go up.

>I think we could quite easily say "Hahahahaha fuck off, make my day"
>and they know it.

I think you meant to say the reply given in the case of Arkell v
Pressdram. I would really hate to try that without solid legal review.

> But a less nuclear option is worth exploring. To be
>nice and stuff.



There are alternatives. Commercially Beilstein and ISI Web of
Knowledge. Non commercially IUPAC and pubchem although IUPAC don't of
course hold a database.



-- 
geni