Brian wrote:
On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 8:29 PM, WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
When you are simply copying a number, you are however, not copying a database or compilation. In this sense you don't even rise to the level of unfair-use as in the case you cited of Rural Telephone. There, they stated not that they had the right to *each* name, but rather that the amount of copying (the entire list) constituted unfair use.
This is one argument, but it's not the one they would make. One can also argue the opposite case; that collection of facts are copyrightable, that Wikipedia, a project whose goal is to give every person "free access to the sum of all human knowledge," is putting CAS numbers on all chemicals and compounds in the encyclopedia, and that this collection constitutes a significant sub-collection of their intellectual property. Does the relevant law make it perfectly clear what constitutes a collection? If you remove 1 item from a collection, is it still copyrighted? 10,000 things, 50% of things, 90% of things? If you want to create a relevant argument, this is the point you will have to focus on.
It all depends on how our collection is built. If we were to start from their database and remove elements you could be right. If we build our collection on as needed basis as when we describe the chemical first than add the number we should be perfectly within our rights.
Ec