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Comment by errantmind | Hacker News Reader

It looks more like an ethical argument than a legal one. I don't understand how this data would be protected under US law. Can someone explain if you think otherwise?

Is the issue that the data was scraped? Or is the issue Google appropriated the scraped data for use in their search results?

From my perspective it just looks like a bad business model: spend a lot of time and effort estimating net worth, and then publish it on the open web. Publicly available data can be freely and legally scraped (and I wouldn't want it any other way): https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/09/victory-ruling-hiq-v-l...

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> It looks more like an ethical argument than a legal one. I don't understand how this data would be protected under US law. Can someone explain if you think otherwise?

That question kind of misses the point. This was a US House hearing. The right question, in the context of such a hearing, is whether it should be legal. The other thing to keep in mind is that this was the action of a company with considerable market power. There's not much that's off limits in principle once it turns into an antitrust case.

Having said that:

> it just looks like a bad business model

seems about right to me. No other companies had done this, and that might be because of the difficulty of monetizing numbers. Few people are going to pay for the information, but it's ultimately just a number. Consumers are better off the faster they get the number they're looking for.

This has been settled case law for decades thanks to sports almanacs. Facts (like someones net worth) cannot be copyrighted. However a compilation of facts can be.

If CNW had published a book, Google purchased it off of Amazon, and paid an intern to retype it in to fact boxes - that is clear copyright violation.

The fact that Google bought the data from a third party data broker who scraped CNW does not absolve them of liability in my mind.

What you are saying about compilations makes sense, but was it a compilation in that sense? My interpretation was it was just a bunch of data spread over public pages on a website. It seems like if that constitutes a compilation, it would expand copyright by a lot

> Facts (like someones net worth) cannot be copyrighted. However a compilation of facts can be.

It’s my understanding that this ceased to be true in the USA in 1991 and that a minimal degree of creativity is required [0]. Other countries have started following suit more recently.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._R....

IMO there's a huge difference between a list of names and numbers generated by a research team estimating someone's net worth, and a phone book.

One is a list of informed estimates, the other is a list of (essentially) facts.

Informed guesses are IMO essentially much longer pieces of creative content, just condensed into a number.

> Facts (like someones net worth) cannot be copyrighted. However a compilation of facts can be.

... in the US.

In the EU and UK there is separate copyright-like legislation that covers this, so-called "database rights".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_right

I'm not sure the data in question here would qualify as "facts" like a batting average or win percentage would. These are researched estimates. Different outlets would come up with different numbers depending on the researchers and techniques they employ. Ergo it requires a degree of skill and creativity.

But as you say, the point is moot. The collection itself should certainly be covered by copyright whether its contents are a mere collection of "facts" or not.

The case you referenced says scraping is legal. It does not say re-publishing the scraped data is legal.

>I don't understand how this data would be protected under US law. Can someone explain if you think otherwise?

For something to be copyright-able it needs to have an element of creativity. That's why you can't copyright facts. Arguably, the net worth estimates require a degree of creativity to come up with. They aren't "facts", they are estimations based on research.

It is not public nor commodity information.

> We generated content that could not be found anywhere else on the web and that had never existed previously in response to demand in the marketplace. The information we produce to this day is unique. It is not commodity information like the height of a famous building or the time of day.

To call it the open web makes it sound like the wild west, and it's not: are Google SERPs on the open web? Can I copy the search results for 1000 words and paste it on my website? No.

It's the business model of many online blogs and sites, and get payment through ads. Of course it's not a really strong model now that ads revenue are going down. It was a strong one not so long ago.

Now it's clearly IPR theft, present it how you like, but theft is theft.

Plus it's not really smart from Google given their prior contact and request to this company on APIs and providing it for free.

Now the real question: Is Google going to go away with it blaming it on "rogue employee" and continuing on dispensing huge sum of cash and free advisory to gov and internet NGOs in their constant advocacy effort...

>> Now it's clearly IPR theft, present it how you like, but theft is theft.

I don't quite see the legal basis for it being theft. Can you explain?

IANAL:

1. Google doesn't show in-line'd data box with Net worth

2. Google asks site (CNW) for access, is denied.

3. Google then shows site's data in data box (with CNW site proof of theft with canary tokens being the fake celebrity's net worth) that are now presented as Google's data (no source or fake source), without license from original site.

If that isn't theft of data, what is it?

From the PDFs, there is no license for free re-use ;-)

While I'm all-in for freedom of information and open source documentation license or open data licenses, I fully understand the need of businesses to protect their intellectual property and rights.

You keep calling it “theft”. It is obviously not literally theft, since no physical object has been taken. The only thing you could possibly mean is “copyright infringement” (which is commonly called theft in imprecise and inflammatory language), but copyright does not apply to a simple fact like a dollar amount, no matter how much research lies behind it.

You might be of the opinion that it should, but that is a different argument, which you did not make.

Ok, sorry sir ;-) Copyright infringement. What's the difference really here?

IANAL means this precisely (and on a side note, I'm here for open exchange and debate, not for claiming to be right ;-)

Interestingly, depending on jurisdictions, there are places on the globe (EU, FR) where I think the terminology is theft not copyright infringement ("theft of database"), even if it does not apply to this US National dispute. Now let's see how this goes with the US gov.

There is a significant difference, and an entire activism movement in ensuring this is recognized. Thanks for calling out (and I hope realizing) the difference.

> Copyright infringement. What's the difference really here?

Upthread, the user “errantmind” asked you to provide your legal basis for it being “theft”. It’s obviously not legally speaking theft, since no physical object has been taken. But let’s be a bit charitable and assume that you meant “copyright infringement” instead. However, you have not made the case for it being copyright infringement either, since Google’s copying (which you do describe in detail) did not, AFAIK, infringe copyright (at least in the US, which is where the investigation referred to in the document is being held).

If you want to argue that what Google did is illegal, then please specify what actual law was broken.

On the other hand, if you instead want to argue that what Google did should be illegal, then please, go ahead and present your case, but this was not the original topic.

actually this is interesting right here, because if Google takes CNW's fake celebrity, then that is definite copyright infringement - the fake celebrity was created by CNW and as such is not a fact so Google can't argue that it's not copyrighted because facts are not copyrighted.

That's not how the courts view these issues. Fake facts hidden within real facts have been litigated many times and has always been shown to be uncopyrightable. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street#Legal_issues.

You are correct, about Trap Streets. I'm not sure if the language is fake facts hidden in real facts, or fake streets in maps. Because it seems pretty specific to trap steets.

If the language is indeed not general beyond trap streets - if I create a fake celebrity and data regarding them, I would argue that is more like making a story. A trap street is a small line on the map (generally hidden somewhere unimportant) and a couple words. A fake celebrity requires much more content.

From the PDF "I added fivecompletely conjured celebrities to the site. I used stock photos with entirely made up names, biographies and net worth numbers. I published the pages backdated several yearsso they were nearly invisible to the world."

Now, let's look at a real celebrity on their site https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/actors...

It seems reasonable to assume from the pdf that they put the kind of effort into an article on the fake celebrities to make them indistinguishable from real celebrities, it may be decided that this is the same as a trap street. But I don't think it is just a foregone conclusion.

Aside from all that - https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/mar/06/andrewclark they might be able to sue in some other place than the U.S and find a more sympathetic court.

This isn't theft of data or copyright infringement because you can't copyright facts in the US.

These aren't facts though. They are researched estimates. Different researchers will come up with different numbers.

All facts are well researched estimates. Our number for the speed of light didn't come out of the ether: someone came up with a very sophisticated experiment to get a highly accurate estimate and different experiments get different estimates. Do you think the speed of light should be copyrightable?

The speed of light is absolutely not an estimate. It's a mathematically provable fact.

Facts (in this context) are numbers that are not reasonably disputable. The value of pi, the speed of light and my current phone number are all facts.

What I happen to think the net worth of someone else is, is certainly not a fact. You might think it's something else. It would be difficult to prove either one of us right.

If you don't believe that the speed of light is a physically measured quantity, then replace that question with whatever physical constant you prefer (charge of an electron, gravitational constant, current mass of the earth, etc, etc). Do you think those numbers should be copyrightable? The charge of the electron is particularly interesting as there was actually a lot of debate over that number because some of the original experiments were flawed.

>If you don't believe that the speed of light is a physically measured quantity, then replace that question with whatever physical constant you prefer

Wait, what? You asserted the speed of light could only be estimated. Not me. A "physical constant" is, by definition, a fact and not copyrightable.

You're now arguing the opposite point you were arguing two comments ago ("all facts are well-researched estimates"). What are you trying to do?

Your distinction between "measure" and "estimate" seems meaningless to me, and probably to most scientists and engineers. All physical measurements have uncertainty, and many people are engaged as we speak in creative (in the colloquial sense of the word) work seeking to reduce that uncertainty. We tend to say "measurement" when the uncertainty is negligibly small for whatever purpose is at hand, and "estimate" when it's not; but that distinction is as much in how the number will be used as in the number itself.

As to specific examples, the speed of light and charge on an electron are tricky because they're both exact by definition in SI today; but considerable creativity was required to get those definitions. The mass of the Earth is uncertain in kg today, and creative work is ongoing to decrease that uncertainty. So does that make a new estimate of the mass of the Earth copyrightable? Perhaps just the last, previously-unknown digits would be copyrightable?

I'm not aware of case law on anything too closely resembling physical constants; but I'm near-certain the answer if litigated would be no, and I'd guess the argument would be something like "you're uncovering some preexisting truth, not creating something new (no matter how 'creative' your approach to the uncovering)". Returning to the original question, the CNW guy presumably got competent legal advice and concluded the copyright angle wasn't worth pursuing, and instead focused on the antitrust angle in his testimony.

>So does that make a new estimate of the mass of the Earth copyrightable?

Likely not on its own (due to fair use). But in a "collection" of estimates for the mass of all known celestial bodies then yes, it absolutely would be copyrightable. The same way a collection of stock price targets produced by a research company are copyrightable.

I agree with the rest of your comment in general but it's relevance to the discussion is questionable. In court, the speed of light would certainly be "a fact" unless it was expressed to a precision beyond the margin of error, and that margin of error was relevant to the copyright claim. That's getting way off track from the original point since we'd be talking about a singular number instead of a collection of numbers.

Back to the original discussion: A collection of facts is not copyright-able. The poster said the collection of wealth estimates was factual and therefore not copyright-able. That's provably false since another, equally skilled researcher would come up with different numbers and they can't both be factual. Right?

>the CNW guy presumably got competent legal advice and concluded the copyright angle wasn't worth pursuing

You're trying to imply that this means he had no legal basis for his claim. I find that very disingenuous. Besides, there's no need to speculate on why he didn't pursue legal action, the reasons are clearly outlined in the write up.

Edit: I see now why the "speed of light" example is not a good one since the meter is derived from the speed of light. Perhaps pi is the best example of a simple, agreed upon, physical constant or "fact" for the purpose of this debate.

Is there case law on the price targets? That one seems yet hazier to me, given the inherent uncertainty of predictions vs. (still uncertain) estimates of current truths. I guess in a deterministic universe they're the same thing, but that seems a bit too philosophical for most lawyers' taste.

In any case, large companies with near-infinite legal budgets still don't get to (openly) violate well-settled law, since judges do see what's happening and seek to minimize the burden on their opponents--and even award legal fees where possible, which it probably would be here under the Copyright Act. Their advantage comes when the law is at least slightly unclear and a victory would be worth a lot more dollars to the large company (for the precedent) than to their opponent. I believe that's the situation here, and the reason why CNW chose not to pursue Google for copyright infringement; though even with matched legal teams, I'd still bet that CNW would lose.

Finally, if that mass of the Earth isn't copyrightable, then no concept of fair use exists, because that concept exists only for copyrighted material; so I don't think your statement there makes sense. If a copyright for the CNW dataset did exist (which I doubt, but maybe), then Google could still argue fair use. I'd bet Google would lose that one, since they're using the whole work, without transformation of the original, in a way that destroys the commercial value of the original.

“Researched estimates” that in CNW’s case are virtually fictitious. To me, the scandal is Google enabling and boosting this SEO spam in the first place.

I'm working on the assumption that the testimony provided to congress is truthful.

The research may well be fictitious, but there is no evidence of that.

Is the fact “CNW has estimated that celebrity A has a net worth of $X” copyrightable? I sincerely doubt it.

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