Will Johnson wrote:
Maybe a reader familiar with this SciFinder could explain what it is exactly and why it may or may not violate the CAS database.
See [[Chemical Abstracts Service#SciFinder]]. See also [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry/CAS validation]], which is where all this started.
I've never used it, but extrapolating from what I've read about it, it's a tool for accessing the CAS database of chemical compounds. You can access by name, by chemical formula, by CAS number, and (most useful for chemists) by graphical shape or structure of the chemical.
When you buy/license it, you are specifically asked to agree not to use it as an aid to creating another database -- which, it must be said, is what it sounds like some of the folks at [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry/CAS validation]] are doing.
That is, the intended uses all involve looking up the chemicals you're working with (or are thinking of working with) so that you can be sure you're looking in the right place (i.e. under an unambiguous name) for anyone else's work with the same chemicals.
What you're not supposed to do is use the tool to look up every chemical in the CAS database, extract the reference information there, and compile your own database with that data.