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

[John Vandenberg]

On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 5:25 AM, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/03/2008, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  >  There also seems to be a free look-up independent of ACS
>  >  (http://webbook.nist.gov/chemistry/cas-ser.html). That said, this page
>  >  is footed with "CAS registry numbers are copyrighted by the American
>  >  Chemical Society. Redistribution rights for CAS registry numbers are
>  >  reserved by the American Chemical Society. "CAS registry" is a
>  >  registered trademark of the American Chemical society.".
>
>  "Redistribution rights" is probably the key phrase here - without
>  explicitly saying so, that seems to be the same sort of restriction as
>  SciFinder places on the user. It just makes the lookup process
>  no-charge...

Whether or not there is copyright, they are using contract law to
protect their IP.

SciFinder License Agreement:

"...I acknowledge that I am permitted to:
* Search only for myself and not for others or other origanizations.
* Use only the LoginID and password assigned to me and not share these
with any other person.
* Store up to 5,000 Records and any one time.
* Contribute my 5,000 Records into a Project Database for use by my
Project team for the duration of the project.
..."

More information at:

http://www.cas.org/legal/infopolicy.html

--
John