[Coco] Re: Regarding Copyright and the Rainbow Magazine

[Richard E. Crislip]

Hello 

I wish I'd kept the message I saw Lonnie quoted in earlier, but it seems to
me that he agreed that an index composed by hand was not in voilation of
the law, and that he also thought that some of that law was silly. Did I
miss something here? I know some of you guy are PO'ed with Lonnie for not
giving up the rights to his out of publication magazine, but he is at least
working with us, and so what if he still expects a return on his orginal
investment. His threat as I understood it was towards an individual who
seemed to be saying "damned the torpedos, full speed ahead" on an idea that
Lonnie may not fully understand or that that person could care less about
Lonnie's position on it. Am I wrong here too?

On 07/05/2005, John R. Hogerhuis wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-07-05 at 18:11 -0500, Boisy G. Pitre wrote:
>> Wait a minute.  Aren't we talking about a database that is compiled  
>> by someone else, and not a direct duplication of The Rainbow's  
>> index?  Can Lonnie claim that he owns the copyright to that
>> compilation?
>
> Who compiles a database is irrelevant. A mere list of facts cannot be
> copyrighted, period, including the indexes as included in Rainbow
> Magazine. A database can be protected as a trade secret, but this isn't
> secret since it was printed in Rainbow.
>
> This is why customer databases, phone books, etc. are not covered by
> copyright. It isn't even a fair use issue; that's where things get
> complex, but the law on copyrighting lists of facts is quite clear, you
> can't do it,
>
> Lonnie is off base; but whatever. No point in scuttling the deal
> because he doesn't quite get the finer points of copyright.
>
> Of course I am not a lawyer, so ask a real one to give you the whole
> story.
>
> -- John.
>
>
Regards
-- 
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