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

[Ray Saintonge]

Brian wrote:
> You can argue that until you are blue in the face. They've got a law firm
> and large budget, we've got a laywer who is already very busy. 
That argument is sheer cowardice.  It does the WMF little good to cave 
in at the tiniest suggestion of intimidation.
> The American
> Chemical Society has stated the following terms for the use of CAS Registry
> Numbers:
>
> http://www.cas.org/legal/infopolicy.html
>
> A User or Organization may include, without a license and without paying a
>   
>> fee, up to 10,000 CAS Registry Numbers or CASRNs in a catalog, website, or
>> other product for which there is no charge. *The following attribution
>> should be referenced or appear with the use of each CASRN: CAS Registry
>> Number(R) is a Registered Trademark of the American Chemical Society*. CAS
>> recommends the verification of the CASRNs through CAS Client ServicesSM.
>>     
There you go, as someone has said we are only up to 2200.  Putting that 
notice on every page where we give the number for a single chemical 
would be absurd when the notice is longer than the number, but the CASRN 
heading would normally link to a page that explains this number.  There 
we can make note of their claim, and that it is not universally recognized.
> A User who makes a legal copy of CAS information must make a reasonable
>   
>> effort to prevent the theft or inadvertent illicit dissemination of CAS
>> intellectual property by displaying the following ACS Copyright Notice
>> conspicuously at least once on each packet of information distributed by the
>> User: Copyright Year by the American Chemical Society. All Rights Reserved.
>> (Use the year of publication in the case of printed and microform services;
>> in the case of information derived from an online service, use either the
>> year provided by the online service or the current year.) For usage
>> exceeding or outside these restrictions, please refer to Section V.
>> Special Permission <http://www.cas.org/legal/infopolicy.html#special>.
>>     
What do they mean by "legal copy of CAS information"?  Nobody is talking 
about showing the entire 35,000,000 numbers ... yet.  If individual 
numbers are copyrighted (a premise which I would dispute) the copyright 
year would be the year in which that number was assigned, and could be 
as early as 1965 when the registry began.  Annual reprints do not 
acquire a refreshed copyright year.
> Furthermore:
>
> IV. Unauthorized Use of CAS Information
>   
>> All of the following uses are prohibited without prior written permission
>> from CAS:
>>
>>    1. A User may not disseminate, distribute, copy, or store any
>>    portion of the CA Lexicon, without the prior written consent of CAS. The CA
>>    Lexicon is the copyrighted intellectual property of the American Chemical
>>    Society and is provided to assist in searching Databases on STN.
>>     
If we aren't getting the information from their Lexicon, but 
accumulating the information from a wide variety of sources, like the 
"CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics" or the labels on jars of 
chemicals, we aren't copying their lexicon.  By gathering it that way we 
are gathering the information, not its form of expression.
>>    2. A User may not copy or otherwise record all or portions of a
>>    printed issue or Database with the purpose of, or the effect of, avoiding
>>    subscription fees or use charges for that publication or Database, except as
>>    provided in these Policies. This includes the creation of centralized or
>>    networked Databases or directories of CAS information.
>>     
What information are they talking about besides the name and number?  
How we organize independently acquired information is none of their 
concern.  An independently developed algorithm that coincidently gives 
the same result as their database would not be a breach of copyright.
>>    3. CAS Records or Metadata may not be used in Data Mining with
>>    non-CAS or non-STN tools unless the User or Information Professional has
>>    downloaded the records via STN AnaVist. For uses of CAS Information outside
>>    of this procedure the User or Information Professional must contact CAS.
>>     
Thi shouldn't apply if we haven't received our information directly from 
them.
>>    4. A User may not use automated programs for systematic retrieval of
>>    CAS content to create or compile, directly or indirectly a collection,
>>    compilation, database or directory. An example of automated retrieval is a
>>    script written to extract and download CAS data in batches.
>>     
Perhaps under contract law, but we have no contract with them.
>>    5. A User may not redistribute any part of CAS Records or any CAS
>>    Data Elements outside the Organization via the Internet or other means
>>    except as specified in these Policies.
>>     
"Data elements" are clearly information rather than expression.
>>    6. A government agency which receives legally required CAS
>>    information from a User may not share, exchange, or redistribute this
>>    information to another Organization, including another government agency.
>>     
We aren't a government agency.
>> I suggest that we remove all CAS Registry Numbers from Wikipedia. They are
>>     
> not Free. The ACS has been generous, *so far,* to politely say as much to
> us.
>   
This is a panicked overreaction.  Letting us do what we already had the 
right to do is not exactly a characteristic of generosity.

Ec