The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #18070   Message #177675
Posted By: GUEST,Okiemockbird
13-Feb-00 - 02:00 PM
Thread Name: 'bonfires, with a drum and 2 [bag]pipes'
Subject: RE: 'bonfires, with a drum and 2 [bag]pipes'
Praise, a good place to check for UCC2B and the Database Bill is Charles Mann's article, Who Will Own Your Next Good Idea ? from the September 1998 Atlantic Monthly. It is available on-line in three parts:

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98sep/copy.htm

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98sep/copy2.htm

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98sep/copy3.htm

The discussion of UCC-2B and the so-called "Collections of Information Antipiracy Act" (Database Bill) is in the third part.

The short description, if you don't want to look through Mann's article: some versions of the proposed article 2B of the Uniform Commercial Code would allow Max to sell you the Digital Tradition with a shrink-wrap license. This "license" could oblige you to pay Max even for use of the public domain components of the DT.

The Database bill is harder to describe, but it too (at least in the last draft I read; it may have been revised since) could subject to an additional layer of legal uncertainty the use even of public domain components of large collections of music.

T.