So the Harvard Coop fiasco goes into yet another day with lawyers at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society giving the book sellers (part of the Barnes and Noble College Division) a much needed lesson in copyright law. To recap (see also here and here), Harvard undergraduates running a comparison-shopping textbook service online were copying down course book ISBN numbers in the Harvard bookstore and were told to leave. On a second occasion The Coop (the name of the bookstore) called the cops, who, however, refused to intervene. The Coop's reasons were that the ISBN numbers for coursebooks were the store's "intellectual property." The Berkman Center lawyers are mystified:
We're not sure what "intellectual property" right the Coop has in mind, but it's none that we recognize. Nor is it one that promotes the progress of science and useful arts, as copyright is intended to do. While intellectual property may have become the fashionable threat of late, even in the wake of the Recording Industry Association of America's mass litigation campaign the catch-phrase--and the law--has its limits.[snip]
Copyright law protects original works of authorship--the texts and images in those books on the shelves--but not facts or ideas. So while copyright law might prohibit students from dropping by with scanners, it doesn't stop them from noting what books are on the shelf and how much they cost.
The Supreme Court tells us that "[t]he sine qua non of copyright is originality." That's why the compilers of a white-pages telephone directory lost their claims against a competitor who copied listings. The Coop neither authored the ISBN numbers on its books nor compiled them in an original selection or arrangement. From all accounts, the professors who create course reading lists are happy for students to have them. (Professors generally welcome anything that helps students to do their course assignments.)
What about the prices that the Coop set and affixed to books? Copyright doesn't protect the "sweat of the brow" involved in compiling facts, either: "[C]opyright rewards originality, not effort." Nor does it give monopoly control of minimally expressive statements (for example, a book's price) that "merge" with the underlying idea (for example, its market value). A federal appeals court recently denied the New York Mercantile Exchange's bid to protect its list of stock prices, saying that "the market is an empirical reality, an economic fact about the world."
Locking competitors out from price comparison is not part of copyright's aim. While some courts have protected the creativity of price estimates, they haven't allowed companies to exclude others from learning market prices or catalog part numbers. CrimsonReading.org, which offers price comparisons built around the book lists gathered from professors and the Coop, furthers copyright's goals of sharing access to information. (Harvard Crimson)
Facts are in the public domain, they reiterate. So if it's good enough for them to reiterate, I'll do it, too: FACTS ARE IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. So are ideas. These lawyers also say The Coop can kick anybody they want off their private property (which I denied was the case in a comment to a previous post, so it appears, at least by this testimony, I was in error). But they also say there is, or should be, a cost for such high handed behavior:
If they call [the police] again, the Coop's managers might want to come up with a better reason than "intellectual property" or risk marring the intellectual face of Harvard. And Harvard might want to re-think its relationship with an institution that seems to put its own profit margin ahead of its students' access to information.
What a bunch of dumb peckerheads.
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The "intellectual property" argument failed on so many levels that it is surprising it lasted over night. Actually, it didn't; it just took this long for the facts to percolate up to the level of the media and the B&N management.
One thing: "ISBN numbers" (International Standard Book Number numbers)is a redundancy that will make any publishing or bookstore veteran cringe. For the sake of my aging teeth, please don't use it again.
Now see Revere we are disagreeing again. We would just call them dumbasses down South as Peckerhead is a PC word. Cant be calling them Peckerheads, they got right.
Seriously though at least they finally started getting the message. They could aso soon be looking at a suit for wrongful restriction of trade......
Thats the reason I like this blog... always something new and exciting.
John: I consider ISBN to the name or label for a kind of number that is unique identifier of an object, in this case a book. So in that sense it is no more redundant than "My name is Revere" since Revere is also a name.
I had the same thing happen to me at a local community college about 5 years ago. They kicked me out for copying down ISBN's. ("You're not allowed to do that!") Since this was the only place, at the time, to get a listing of required texts before class started, I complained to the dean of the school and she got the list for me. Don't know if they're still doing it or not as it was my last semester there and I didn't have enough energy/interest to pursue it further.
I realize that this is trivial point and I'm making a fool of myself for pushing it (however, it does keep me in line for the 500,000th comment), but... Like PIN number, ATM machine, and many others, ISBN number is a neologism that annoys many professionals in the field (and probably no one else).
I also must challenge your defense as an invalid analogy. If the 1975 Pyramid edition of the Harlan Ellison book Web of the City was to say "my ISBN is 0-515-04061-4" it would be correct. If it said "my 'N' is 0-515-04061-4" it would still be correct in the sense that you mean. If it said "my 'N' is a number" it would be correct, but silly. What I was protesting was if it had said my "'N' number is 0-515-04061-4."
I don't mean to waste your time, but I hope you see the distinction I have in mind. Again, it's something that will only bug a minuscule minority, but we will be bugged.
"Like PIN number, ATM machine, and many others, ISBN number is a neologism that annoys many professionals in the field (and probably no one else"
I'm just glad to read that I am not the only one who is annoyed by that.
JM and Mpop: Since I am often annoyed by minutia like that (e.g., "general consensus" which is a redundancy) I sympathize and chafe a bit at being accused of perpetrating one. However I think the correctness of ISB Number is awkward. I running argument I had with my mother was whether one should say, "It is I" or "It is me." I opted for the latter, although "is" takes the nominative. My conscience is clear.
As an economist I get real annoyed when people say "CPI index" or "PPI Index" or "national GDP" (and it happens a lot) so I empathize.
One thing about copyright law is that its enforcement is much more about relative power than lawbreaking. For example, many artists and creative companies have the legal right to use small extracts of copyrighted work. For many years they did so. However, recently copyright holders send out reams and reams of complaint/cease and desist letters to people who do not know exactly what they can and cannot do. Sometimes it is expensive to figure out what is legal and not so most just do not use the work (as it easier).
A good example of the "power" part of this is that many artists use their copyright to allow kindred or flattering use of their work but to but huge dollars on people who's work they do not like (or does not flatter the original work sufficiently).
This extension of an "intellectual property" claim to prices is hardly surprising. It is not about the law really (as no one was doing anything illegal) but about control over the behavior of their "customers".
Floormaster,
My read on the situation (given that the law around Fair Use is hardly settled) is that you are correct and that the copyright holder reacts according to whether or not they like the work product which used their original work. That having been said, as a blogger to takes an, um, generous reading of fair use, the only C&D letter I ever received was from an author whom I praised fulsomely. Go figure.
it seems to be the strategy of the legislation to
keep things ambiguous, so they have more room
to decide individual cases by their "feeling".
It might even give better judgement in these individual
cases, but it also has negative effects on other situations
where people just don't know what's allowed and what not.
I'm dreaming of a separate internet, where only free,
non-copyrighted information is available.
Copyrighted material is removed and not used at all,
even if the copyright holder allows limited usage.
People would search that material first and only if they
don't find what they want, they search the "other" internet.
Same for distracting advertisements or sites which put
their material into search-engines although it is not
freely available.
I predict that the information contents of the different
webs would approach each other asymptotically.