On Fri, 18 Dec 1998, Doug Yowza wrote: Excited? No. Appalled. Yah! Our auctions will work better and faster! Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Always being hassled by the man. Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0 See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details! [Last web site update: 12/07/98]

Where do you want to loose your money today ? (SM) H. -- Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut HRK

On Fri, 18 Dec 1998, Chuck McManis wrote: An excellent point. Final Ebay results disappear after about 30 or 40 days. As you all saw from my post of the SOL auctions, I've been saving some Ebay summaries manually for the last 14 months or so. Nothing specific. Just stuff that eclectically appeals to me. Auctions for computer equipment only and maybe about a couple of hundred a month It probably can be automated and the number harvested stepped up, but what I am doing so far fits my browsing, bookmarking and bidding patterns, so I don't find it a burden. Anybody else on the list doing this? Anybody thinking about doing it seriously? Anybody want to throw some ideas out for standardizing the information stored? Just curious, -- Steve

They don't own the data. Data is still not owned by anybody. As soon as a specific fact is published, it is free to be used. What they own is the copyright to _their_ reprensentation of this data on in _their_ publications. So everybody is free to read the final prices of eBay items and compile a list (or book). You don't need any 'licence' to use them, as long as the compilaton is your work and not taken without further rework other than beautifying. Its the same as with compilations of pricelists of other auction houses: Most (larger) auction houses compile their own list and sell them, or sell a second edition of the auction catalogue with prices, but magazines and specialized publishing companies also compile lists but without any licence fee, since it is not based on any publishing of the auction house. Gruss H. -- Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut HRK

Eric Smith <eric(a)brouhaha.com> Just tell me you are joking - next time someone copyrights the number 5 and you have to pay to use it ? C'mon, they CAN'T copyright data - only representations ... It can't go that way. Hmm, you sound realy serious. It's ridicoulus ... next time time some University claims the fact that the earth is measured 25.000 Miles around and wants royalities from everyone using this fact ? Maybe thats a way to convert the US to the metric system ... just copyright all mesurements in Miles and Inches ad so on ... :))) Gruss H. -- Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut HRK

I wrote about the trend in the US to broaden coverage of copyrights, including applying it to raw data. Hans replies: I'm sure that no court would rule that a single number such as "5" can be copyrighted. The idea is that a >collection< of data can be copyrighted, in the abstract. This is bad, but it seems to be happening more and more. They *almost* passed a law recently that would have allowed companies that publish databases collected by the US Government (paid for by our tax dollars) to own the copyright not just to their publication of the data, but to the data itself, so that no one else could publish the same data. :-( Fortunately this provision was removed at the last minute. The companies that would have benefitted have said that they will keep trying to get it enacted. One of the scariest things about the way the US Congress works is that the conference committees that resolve the differences between the House of Representatives and the Senate versions of a bill often reinsert things that were struck out and not in the final version of either bill. Then they send the conference version back to the House and Senate, where it is approved by a voice vote by Congressmen who haven't even looked at the new version. In the most recent session of Congress this was used to enact a new law permitting roving wiretaps, even though the idea didn't get any support when it was debated in the House. :-( Anyhow, we've gotten way the heck off topic now, so I'd suggest we drop it. Eric