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

[Todd Allen]

On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 11:29 PM, Brian <Brian.Mingus at colorado.edu> wrote:
> We have published hundreds of thousands of their "citations" at
>  download.wikimedia.org. Inside the very same dataset (and in this thread)
>  you can find scripts for converting these "citations" into the very
>  collection that they explicitly claim copyright to. If WMF's lawyer is
>  willing to step in and say that we are not infringing their copyright,
>  that's one thing, but in the meantime they explicitly claim that we are and
>  you are not a lawyer. IMHO there are plausible arguments in favor of the CAS
>  position that you are not considering.
>
>
>  On Sun, Mar 9, 2008 at 1:17 AM, <WJhonson at aol.com> wrote:
>  >
>  > When I cite you, I do not ask nor do I require your permission to so do.
>  >  Not
>  > only don't I require it, but if you complain, I'll just cite your
>  > complaint
>  > as well so everyone can see how foolish you're being :)
>  >
>
>
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I don't see any more creativity in assigning numbers to chemicals than
assigning numbers to pages in a book or phone numbers to people in a
telephone directory (both of which it has been specifically ruled do
not attract copyright). Creativity is a requirement for copyright. The
main point here is not that we might be violating copyright-chances
are, no copyright -exists-, any more than it does on a book's page
numbers or the phone book. There is no creativity in putting numbers
next to things, especially when those numbers are assigned randomly or
by objective standards.

(Disclaimer: That's my own interpretation, and as Phil said, it would
really be nice if someone who's actually passed the bar exam weighed
in here.)

-- 
Freedom is the right to say that 2+2=4. From this all else follows.