Thursday, June 24, 1999

Users and Publishers of Data Bases Disagree Over 2 Bills in Congress By FLORENCE OLSEN Washington Mobilized by two bills in Congress that would create new intellectual-property protections for data-base publishers, the producers and users of data bases are ratcheting up their argument over whether the bills would harm science research and higher education. Scientific and research progress depends on researchers' ability "to combine public and proprietary data to create new data bases, and to reuse existing data," says a spokeswoman for research libraries. Many research libraries, universities, and information-technology companies favor H.R. 1858, a bill that was introduced in the House of Representatives on May 19 by Rep. Thomas J. Bliley, Republican of Virginia. Some, though not all, of the largest U.S. commercial data-base publishers say they will back the alternative House bill, H.R. 354, sponsored by Rep. Howard Coble, Republican of North Carolina. Data-base users say they see substantial differences in the two bills' allowances for "transformative use" of data-base information -- the kind of use in which, for instance, a researcher might extract information from dozens of data-base sources and transform it to create new knowledge. Under Mr. Coble's bill, it would be "very difficult for a librarian or user in one of our institutions to know what amount of use would be permitted," said Prudence Adler, assistant executive director of the Association of Research Libraries, during a meeting on the bills organized last week by the House Science Committee. Although the Science Committee doesn't have jurisdiction over the bills, committee members said they were interested in the proposals because of their potential impact on research. Ms. Adler said that seeking permission on a case-by-case basis to reuse elements of a data base -- which she says Representative Coble's bill would require -- would add significantly to the time and cost of scientific research. Ms. Adler was one of several panelists who presented their views to Science Committee members. But another panelist, Dan Duncan, vice-president of government affairs for the Software and Information Industry Association, criticized Mr. Bliley's bill for being "more or less an invitation to data-base piracy." Ms. Adler, a defender of Mr. Bliley's bill, described it as "permitting what we can do today under 'fair use.'" She added that scientific progress depends on researchers' ability to use information in the public domain -- "to combine public and proprietary data to create new data bases, and to reuse existing data." While academic researchers and librarians say they are satisfied with current data-base protections, large commercial publishers -- such as Reed Elsevier and McGraw-Hill -- are not. Their efforts to win stronger legal protections against unauthorized data-base copying and reuse have put lawmakers in the difficult position of trying to balance the nation's commercial and research interests, said Rep. Mark Udall, Democrat of Colorado, who is a member of the Science Committee. Recent legislation defining intellectual-property rights in Europe has increased industry pressure on U.S. lawmakers to respond in kind, House members say. The European Union, for example, created new intellectual-property rights that protect not only data bases as a whole but also the discrete data elements within data bases. Those same protections will extend to U.S. data-base producers who sell products in Europe only if the United States passes reciprocal legislation. Creating a legislative remedy could be difficult because the line separating non-profit from commercial reuse of data-base information is not always clear, even in universities, said Jose-Marie Griffiths, chief information officer for the University of Michigan. Because of the growth in university research that is paid for by companies, lawmakers need to consider future fair-use exceptions in the context of those new for-profit research partnerships, Ms. Griffiths said. Jonathan Band, a lawyer in the Washington office of Morrison & Foerster who represents 3Com, StorageTek, and other information-technology companies, said his clients opposed the broad data-base protections in Mr. Coble's bill. In recent years, technology companies have benefited considerably from university research, and they now count themselves among its most ardent supporters. If a researcher today buys one copy of a data base, he is free "to extract and distribute to his team discrete items of information," Mr. Band said. "Broad data-base protection would make this extraction and internal distribution unlawful," he said. Two decades ago, the U.S. government and academic institutions produced about three out of four U.S. data bases, with private companies producing the balance, Mr. Band said. By 1997, companies had become dominant, producing 78 per cent of all U.S. data bases. Ms. Adler, of the research-libraries association, noted that the data-base industry "is very healthy." She said U.S. research libraries buy more than $2-billion worth of information each year from commercial information and data-base publishers. Even though academic researchers and librarians say they are satisfied with the status quo, they concede that some additional safeguards may be necessary in order to protect public access to government information -- especially now that the private sector plays a larger role in disseminating information produced by the federal government. As of now, the House bills have no equivalents in the Senate, and observers say they can't predict whether bills will be introduced there, or how they would fare if they were. Background stories from The Chronicle: Academic Groups Say Copyright Legislation in Congress Would Impede Scholarship (5/29/98) Congress Again Considers Legislation on Data Bases (11/7/97) A Proposed Treaty on Data Bases Is Dead -- at Least for Now (1/10/97)