Trying to end the Internet as we know it....

[fudge stripe cookays]

I got this from a fellow genealogy researcher who is concerned about our being able to access information over the internet.

I just wrote her back and told her this is way more far-reaching than genealogy. I don't know if any threads have been posted about this so far, but this scares the hell out of me.....


Notice how almost all the sponsors are Republican. You know how people have been saying they'll come after the internet next? It's here, folks.

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The following article is from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter and is copyright 2004 by Richard W. Eastman. It is re-published here with the permission of the author. Information about the newsletter is available at http://www.eogn.com.

A new bill before the U.S. Congress proposes to overturn one of the
most fundamental concepts of the present copyright laws. If passed, facts would become copyrighted for the first time in U.S. history.

The Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act (HR3261) would make it a crime for anyone to copy and redistribute a substantial portion of data collected by commercial database companies and list publishers. At first, that sounds like a good idea. However, a bit more thought shows that nobody would be able to republish stock quotes, historical health data, sports scores, or voter lists. In fact, a lot of genealogy information could not be republished.

If passed, Google and all the other search engines would be crippled,
probably driven out of business. These are online databases that collect information, or facts, from other online sites so that the user can quickly find the information they seek. If Google and the others are not allowed to collect facts that are now copyrighted, how will they be able to index the Web for you?

Art Brodsky, spokesman for public advocacy group Public Knowledge,
says the bill would let anyone drop a fact into a database or a collection of materials and claim monopoly rights to it. This would contradict the core principle of the Copyright Act, which states that mere information and ideas cannot be protected works.
Let's say that a commercial genealogy service such as Ancestry.com or
OneGreatFamily.com publishes the fact that your great-great-grandparents had a child named John. Once that "fact" has been published by any commercial service, that original publisher would hold the copyright on the fact, and no one else would be allowed to publish it again. The Family History Library, the New England Historic Genealogical Society, Genealogical Publishing Company, and others would be prohibited from publishing that information again in any of their online or printed works.

In fact, private individuals would similarly be barred from publishing the information in their own derivative works. If a commercial site publishes a fact about your ancestors, you would not be able to place that fact on your own Web site or in any book or report that you give to others. The language in this proposed legislation contradicts the core principle of the present copyright acts, which state that mere information and ideas cannot be protected works.

H.R.3261 which may be viewed at http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.html Just enter HR3261 in the search engine. There are two versions, the current beingHR3261RH.

Want to help? You can do your part to protect access to and use of
genealogical data by writing to your Representative today. You can find their email address at: http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Want to help more? You can write to the sponsors of this bill and
tell them you don't want it!

Howard Coble, North Carolina 6th District - Republican
David Hobson, Ohio 7th District - Republican
James Greenwood, Pennsylvania 8th District - Republican
W. "Billy" Tauzin, Louisiana 3rd District - Conservative Republican
F. James Sensenbrenner, Wisconsin 5th District - Republican, Chair of House

Judiciary Committee
(the committee passed it out.)
Robert Wexler, Florida 19th District - Democrat
Michael R. Turner, Ohio 3rd District - Republican
Rob Portman, Ohio 2nd District - Republican
William Delahunt, Massachusetts 10th District
Lamar Smith, Texas 21st District

[bryant69]

1. Thanks for posting this

This is a way for corporations to tame the internet, which they've colonized, but haven't yet taken over completely.

Bryant
check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[mmonk]

2. Can this pass constitutional muster?

[madfloridian]

3. Extremely serious and dangerous bill.

This part is very significant:
"The Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act (HR3261) would make it a crime for anyone to copy and redistribute a substantial portion of data collected by commercial database companies and list publishers. At first, that sounds like a good idea. However, a bit more thought shows that nobody would be able to republish stock quotes, historical health data, sports scores, or voter lists. In fact, a lot of genealogy information could not be republished.

There is a good website called Political Graveyard, which would have to shut down.

So much more than genealogy. There is no excuse for a bill like this.

On Edit:
Here is a link to the Political Graveyard and their plea.
http://politicalgraveyard.com/index.html

[bearfartinthewoods]

4. how would it effect google?

they produce a listing of sites but not an actual listing of databases?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

5. MiniTrue, here we come...

...only it won't be MiniTrue, but TrueCo.

[fudge stripe cookays]

6. bumpity bump

Too important not to see...

Sorry to bump my own thread.