Re: Bill HR 3261: Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act

Andre Engels <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.org.wikimedia.legal
Message-ID <[email protected]> 
On Tue, 2 Dec 2003, Alex R. wrote:

> Any comments on this bill and its possible effect on Wikipedia?
>
> http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=108_cong_bills&docid=f:h3261ih.txt.pdf

I read this, and don't see any substantial effect on Wikipedia. One might
consider the usage of the US census data and the CIA world factbook to be
an infringement of this law, but these databases are explicitly excluded in
section 5(a)(1).

Even if the courts could find some other part of Wikipedia infringing on
these matters, I don't think there would be any monetary damages, so there
would be no problem with just taking them down when someone claims
infringements.

Andre Engels
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