[Air-l] ethics - aol data

[Michael Zimmer]

The original (widespread & public) release of the data set was fully  
intentional. The README text file accompanying the datasets included  
this note:
    This collection is distributed for NON-COMMERCIAL RESEARCH USE ONLY.
    Any application of this collection for commercial purposes is  
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.

The bottom of the file includes a copyright notice, but I don't know  
if that's meant to refer to the dataset, or just the ReadMe file.



On Aug 29, 2006, at 3:55 PM, burkx006 at umn.edu wrote:

> On Aug 29 2006, Jeremy Hunsinger wrote:
>
>>> Property is a word that has to be used very carefully -- I'm not
>>> sure that
>>> the data can be called their property in any formal sense. It
>>> cannot (with
>>> a couple of caveats) be the subject matter of patent or copyright.
>>
>> The collection a whole or in part as held as a whole in a database
>> could be copyrighted i thought.   Wasn't that a law that passed a few
>> years ago that we all protested, but it was pretty much passed
>> anyway?   I may be mistaken here, but I seem to recall that passing.
>
> Copyright does not cover facts. It could cover the original  
> selection and
> arrangement of facts, but an access log or similar compilation  
> probably
> does not qualify as original in selection and arrangement -- it likely
> includes all the access data, in a format dictated by the technical
> architecture.
>
> The EU member states and some other countries have a separate form of
> intellectual property covering databases in which there has been a
> substantial commercial investment. Recent decisions suggest that  
> computer
> logs wouldn't qualify for that, either.
>
>> here are what i thought they could do more or less:  Control the
>> data, Benefit or license access to the data, transfer or sell the
>> data, exclude others from the data.  those are all traditional
>> property rights... i think...
>
> They can do some of these things, but because of their property  
> rights in
> their hardware/software -- not in the data. See the "horse is out  
> of the
> barn" comment below.
>
>> yes, i was not thinking trade secrecy, that would be an interesting
>> argument, but, I'm not sure it what would be a secret there, unless
>> it is the whole of the collection of data, because google like aol
>> has given access to parts of their data before.
>
> For trade secrecy, the information must "not be generally known" to
> competitors.
>
>>> For example, I don't think that AOL has any
>>> ability to control use of the data they accidentally released.
>>
>> it wasn't an accidental release, was it.  I thought it was released
>> under license to researchers and then people re-released it.
>
> My understanding was that the re-release was unintentional (on  
> AOL's part,
> anyway). In any event, intentional or not, once it's out of the  
> barn, they
> have no ability -- which is to say no property right -- to prevent  
> its use
> by whomever happens upon it.
>
>>> I am speaking at IASTED Law/Tech on a version such claims in the
>>> context of
>>> "fantasy sports" data representations:
>>> http://www.iasted.org/conferences/keynote-545.html
>>
>> there was just another lawsuit on that and baseball wasn't there?
>> that is a bit different I think because arguably all of the data that
>> you need to play fantasy sports can be found in your daily
>> newspaper.
>
> In each case, the question is the extent to which data about an  
> individual
> maps onto the persona of the individual.
>
> -- 
> Dan L. Burk
> Oppenheimer, Wolff & Donnelly Professor
> University of Minnesota Law School
> 229 19th Avenue South
> Minneapolis, MN  55455
> **********************************
> voice: 612-626-8726
> fax: 612-625-2011
>
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