Database security

[Steve]

Bill on Protecting Databases Resurfaces in House

Jeri Clausing
NY Times 3/19/99


The Clinton Administration and a diverse coalition of academics,
Internet companies, banking and medical groups on Thursday lined up
against legislation that raises a complex but key policy issue for
the digital age: how to protect databases from pirates without
limiting access to information that has historically been part of the
public domain. 

The bill, by Representative Howard Coble, a North Carolina
Republican, is being sought by companies concerned that new
technology allows competitors to quickly and easily copy massive
collections of information that they compile, catalogue and resell.
Because such collections generally consist of information in the
public domain, they are not subject to copyright or other
intellectual property protections. 

But opponents say the bill goes too far, and could ultimately result
in electronic toll gates to information that is now widely available
free on the Internet -- from scientific research to stock quotes,
telephone and e-mail listings, even directories of Internet domain
names. 

A similar proposal by Coble was passed twice by the House last year.
But it fell victim to last minute House and Senate negotiations and
was stripped from a larger bill, the Digital Millennium Copyright
Act. 

Because database companies compile facts and lists of what generally
is information in the public domain, their collections are not
subject to copyright or other intellectual property protections. 

Coble, at the first hearing on the issue this session, told the
House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on intellectual property
that his new bill tries to strike a balance between the competing
interests. "The balance provides adequate protection to insure there
is an incentive for companies to invest in the development of
collections of information, without inhibiting members of the
scientific, library and research communities from carrying on their
work." 

And Coble, who is chairman of the subcommittee, promised to continue
working to appease concerns of opponents. 

But the two sides are still far apart. A coalition of more than 100
companies, education institutions, nonprofit and trade associations
signed a paper given to the committee that said the proposal
remained too broad, and would change the basic information policy of
the country -- one that has historically protected expressions, not
facts. 

The Clinton Administration echoed those concerns. 

Andrew J. Pincus, general counsel for the Department of Commerce,
said the Administration recognized that there were legal gaps that
currently allow the piracy of databases that companies have spent a
lot of time and money creating. But he said a final proposal needs
to be much more narrowly crafted so everyone knows "where the lines
are drawn." 

Charles E. Phelps, provost of the University of Rochester, said the
current proposal would be a nightmare for researchers, who he said
would need armies of lawyers to determine what kind of information
to which they would and wouldn't have legal access. 

"While there may be enough attorneys to guide us through this maze,
we could not afford them," he said, urging that if Congress is in
doubt, it should "err on the side of access." 

The bill would make it illegal for someone to extract all of or
substantial parts of a collection of information, if the action
would "cause harm to the actual or potential market" for the owner of
the database. Violators could faces fines of up to $250,000 for each
offense and five years in prison. 

Pincus suggested that the bill be changed to limit its reach to
commercial pirates. He suggested the legislation apply only to those
who, without authorization "extract for commercial distribution or
distributes in commerce" all or a substantial part of a database. He
also suggested that the threshold of causing harm be increased to
substantial harm. 

Pincus and others said they were also concerned that the law would
allow companies to claim the market rights to certain areas of data
collection. That would be a boon both to powerful companies already
established in the database market and to speculators or new
companies looking to enter a market. 

"I fear this could lead to a gold rush of sorts - people running out
to stake their claims," Pincus siad. 

Marc A. Pearl, general counsel and vice president of government
affairs for the Information Technology Association of America,
compared the potential for speculative market claims to the
first-come, first-serve policy that allows "cybersquatting" of
potentially lucrative domain names. 

"Anyone could put up a Web page and claim the rights to a certain
market for databases," he said. 

But witnesses representing database interests urged the committee
not to make any more changes to the bill. 

"Any additional changes must be viewed with great care and
cautiousness," said Marilyn Winokur, executive vice president of
Micromedex, which compiles and publishes a host of medical-related
database, including the Physician's Desk Reference. "We cannot so
dilute the bill as to undermine its effectiveness as a tool against
database piracy."

Winokur, who was representing the Coalition Against Database Piracy,
said database companies invest millions of dollars annually in the
hardware and software needed to manage large bodies of information. 

The Coble bill, she said, "is about eliminating the inequity in a
legal regime that allows an unscrupulous competitor to copy with
impunity the contents of someone else's compilation and then destroy
the first compiler's market by selling a competing less expensive
product. 

"It is also about rectifying the injustice that takes place when a
dishonest customer or a 'cyberprankster' -- without permission --
electronically copies and makes it freely available over the
Internet. In sum, it is about helping restore fairness to the
database marketplace." 

Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company 






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