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• The WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) database protection treaty (proposed)
• The EU (European Union) database protection directive (enacted)
• The US database protection bill (status?)

• Example 1:
• US Supreme Court ruled that a white-pages telephone directory was not covered by copyright
• Example 2:
• A French court ruled that a complete chronological list of French wines based on production region and vintage was not protected
• WIPO argue that:
• Without protection, there is no incentive for companies to produce useful databases

• Patents
• protect inventions
• Copyright
• protects written work and creative work
• Proposed database protection
• protects information (about anything)

Problems with the details of the treaty
E.g. no (default) fair use provision

• I can photocopy a paper for my own use
• I can copy a diagram on to an overhead for a lecture

• I can not cite a redshift in a lecture without getting permission
• It does allow countries to include such a clause, but this would need to be argued on a country-by-country basis

• Range
• It makes protection the default
• It uses the word "database" to include nearly everything on the www
• It makes perpetual protection possible
• It imposes civil or criminal penalties for infringement

• A scientist passing protected data to a colleague will be subject to prosecution
• It allows use of "insubstantial parts" but then voids this by banning "repeated and systematic use"

• If you use data in a publication
• You have to check the data is not protected (and maybe pay fees)
• If you use data cited by someone else, you will need to get permission from the original owner
• This will
• make it very difficult to compile data from many sources (e.g. radio-FIR correlation, Tegmark diagram, logN-logS correlation)
• kill off data-miming projects
• make books of reference data near-impossible to compile (e.g. K.R.Lang, Astrophysical Quantities, etc)

• Presumably NASA & other gov't agencies will declare their data to be public domain (but NB Landsat!)
• What about the business manager of a small fund-starved university?
• What about a small developing country?
• What about individuals?

• Science has a tradition of open scrutiny and access
• Problem: we will not have access to data used by an author
• We won't be able to check or reproduce an author's results

• Treaty proposed in 1996
• Withdrawn after pressure from ICSU and others
• On back-burner - will re-appear!

• Directive (96/9/EC) enacted to apply from 31-Dec-97
• This has already happened!
• All the above is becoming a reality within Europe
• It will be reviewed in 2001

• Bill passed by House of Reps in 98 but rejected by Senate
• Bill re-introduced in 1999 - current status uncertain

• Join with our colleagues in other scientific unions to defeat this at all levels, especially through CODATA and ICSU
  [Click here for graphic showing relationship between IAU, CODATA, ICSU, WIPO]
• Attend CODATA meeting on EU directive in October 2000 in Italy (see www.codata.org)
• Encourage national WIPO and CODATA representatives to oppose it