Sat, 24 Jan 2004 21:27:33 GMT

If at First You Don't Succeed, Stop!.

Just read Open Access News' blog of Information Today's If at First You Don't Succeed, Stop!: Proposed Legislation to Set Up New Intellectual Property Right in Facts Themselves. I'm getting ready to leave town within the hour, so I don't have time to either read or discuss this at length right now, but if you read the “NetCoalition's Top 10 Examples of the Potential Impact of H.R. 3261,” it would seem that teachers and researchers may need to fear this bill as much as the DMCA. For instance,

4. A university professor might be precluded from gathering weather information from a variety of Web sites for use in a paper that argues for or against the increase of global warming.

5. A local PTA might be prohibited from assembling information on drugs and other treatments for childhood diseases to make their research available on the organization's Web site.

[Kairosnews - A Weblog for Discussing Rhetoric, Technology and Pedagogy]