[MUD-Dev] BIZ: Who owns my sword?

[Ren Reynolds]

On 15 September 2003 11:25 Ceo (Adam) wrote
>Tamzen Cannoy wrote:

>> The EU is proposing just such copyrights for databases and the US
>> is also considering it.

>> http://www.mbc.com/db30/cgi-bin/pubs/TPA-European_Commission.pdf

>> http://www.avnonline.com/issues/200309/newsarchive/news_090503_10.shtml

> The links you quote are for something that's been UK law for many
> many years

Yes, the EU Database Directive (96/9/EC) was passed in 1996 and
brought into UK law in 1997. Though while this is an intellectual
property right it's not copyright, it's, well a, database right.

> (and it's a little worrying that this has not previously been
> reflected in the US).

Both the EU and the US do recognize copyright in a collection of
works as a separate right to that of the individual works them
selves. A right which does not alter the copyright status of any of
the works collected in any way

> Essentially, when a person or organization collates and organizes
> IIRC under the UK law, a necessary step is an "indexing" process)
> information, they in effect are creating a form of property - it
> is their hard work that made the decisions of what should be
> included, > where it should be included, how it should be indexed.
> Since this is effectively a creative process, there is some logic
> in it being copyright-protected.

Certainly in the US (and I think in the EU) the right comes
specifically only from the creative acts of selecting and arranging
the content. The _effort_ does not really come into it - the so
called 'sweat of the brow test' was ruled out (in the US) in a case
called Feist vs Rural Telecom (499 US 340 (1991).

> But what Matt's talking about is whether "data in a database" is a
> "legal entity" or not. That is unrelated to whether a database is
> a copyrightable work. The former is like a person - it has rights
> of it's own, and can own things, and can be help responsible/sued
> for it's actions, etc. The latter is merely an item of
> (intellectual) property.

Yes, Matt's original point was indeed not whether there are rights
_in_ databases, but that databases _have_ rights. I agree with Matt
that databases cannot own things.

However, while I believe that Matt things that this state would be a
far off future (my words), and Mike references 'AI fantasies', I
don't that that such as state is that far off. After all a company
is not a sentient entity, nor does it have any material form, but it
can own things. UK copyright law has the notion of 'computer
generated works' which recognizes that computers can make works
separate from humans - in such cases ownership is ascribed to a
person (though exactly who in exactly what circumstances is still
moot).

Now if we look at the UK case Express Newspapers plc v Liverpool
Daily Post & Echo([1985] 1 WLR 1089). It was argued that as the five
letter sequences published on 22 million cards that made up the
'Millionaire of the Month' competition were generated by a computer
and the computer is not a human, it could be an author, so the
sequences were not works, and hence did not enjoy copyright. The
point being that this would enable one newspaper to print the
winning numbers from another's competition (who was it who said -
just follow the money ? <g> ). It was ruled that while indeed the
computer was the creator of the numbers, there was a human author.

But, if we also look at things like rights of publicity, where ones
one own persona can be a transferable and inheritable property
right; and the fact that some avatars can persist longer than
companies or for that matter many humans, and the non-sentience
matter I noted above - I can certainly see property rights being
ascribed to avatars and, and avatars being separate legal entities.

For example, I can (and do) own a company, and the company can own
things separate from me. So why, in principle, can I not own an
avatar and the avatar can own things e.g. the products of it's
'labour' ?

This route could be a neat legal move, it could also of course cause
a convoluted legal and practical nightmare, but that has not stopped
legislators before.

Ren
www.renreynolds.com
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