PointsmanD
03-17-2006, 07:22 PM
The following is excerpted from:
WHEN THE CREATIVE IS THE ENEMY OF THE TRUE:
DATABASE PROTECTION IN THE U.S. AND ABROAD
By Amy C. Sullivan
AIPLA QUARTERLY JOURNAL, Summer 2001, Vol. 29, No. 3, pg. 317
http://www.oblon.com/files/news/42.pdf
Excerpt begins:
… the heart of Bloodstock Research Information Services, Inc. ("Bloodstock") is Richard F. Broadbent III, who in 1971 struck on the idea of compiling
bloodline data for thoroughbred owners and breeders in a comprehensive
database.
…During the early 1970's, Broadbent borrowed a computer terminal at
Kentucky Fried Chicken's Louisville, Kentucky headquarters during the
"graveyard shift" to cull relevant data.
… Broadbent was a personal friend of Kentucky Fried Chicken co-founder and former Kentucky Governor John Y. Brown, Jr….
…He emerged after several months with a set of encyclopedic tomes containing broodmare pedigrees and offspring records published under the collective title The American Produce Records.
…In 1974, Bloodstock, then named Bloodstock Research and Statistical
Bureau, purchased its first computer and began extracting racing statistics
from The Daily Racing Form. Bloodstock employees originally keypunched the data in, by hand, for distribution to customers by Telex machine.
…BRISNET (“BRIS”) is the name of Bloodstock's on-line service available
at www.brisnet.com.. "BRIS" is the acronym derived from the
company's full name Bloodstock Research Information Services.
End of excerpt.
While the initial compiling of data on a Kentucky Fried Chicken computer during the “graveyard shift” is simply described in the above excerpt as culling “relevant data,” without specifying the source of the data, the account explicitly states that data was later extracted from the Racing Form. The earlier data had to be culled from someplace and that someplace was most likely also the Racing Form.
In other words, the BRISNET “fortune” is based on copying a database, the Racing Form’s. Of course, this same copying is now something that they don’t want anyone doing with their information. For example, the above article also describes how BRIS sued someone who was re-selling data from their website.
It brings to mind this quote from Honore de Balzac:
“Behind every great fortune there is a crime.”
The irony is that it’s only a crime in BRIS’ eyes today when someone copies their data just as the founder copied data from the Form. The fact is that it’s still not a crime to copy data because data, such as the data sold by BRIS, Equibase and The Racing Form, cannot be copyrighted under US law.
WHEN THE CREATIVE IS THE ENEMY OF THE TRUE:
DATABASE PROTECTION IN THE U.S. AND ABROAD
By Amy C. Sullivan
AIPLA QUARTERLY JOURNAL, Summer 2001, Vol. 29, No. 3, pg. 317
http://www.oblon.com/files/news/42.pdf
Excerpt begins:
… the heart of Bloodstock Research Information Services, Inc. ("Bloodstock") is Richard F. Broadbent III, who in 1971 struck on the idea of compiling
bloodline data for thoroughbred owners and breeders in a comprehensive
database.
…During the early 1970's, Broadbent borrowed a computer terminal at
Kentucky Fried Chicken's Louisville, Kentucky headquarters during the
"graveyard shift" to cull relevant data.
… Broadbent was a personal friend of Kentucky Fried Chicken co-founder and former Kentucky Governor John Y. Brown, Jr….
…He emerged after several months with a set of encyclopedic tomes containing broodmare pedigrees and offspring records published under the collective title The American Produce Records.
…In 1974, Bloodstock, then named Bloodstock Research and Statistical
Bureau, purchased its first computer and began extracting racing statistics
from The Daily Racing Form. Bloodstock employees originally keypunched the data in, by hand, for distribution to customers by Telex machine.
…BRISNET (“BRIS”) is the name of Bloodstock's on-line service available
at www.brisnet.com.. "BRIS" is the acronym derived from the
company's full name Bloodstock Research Information Services.
End of excerpt.
While the initial compiling of data on a Kentucky Fried Chicken computer during the “graveyard shift” is simply described in the above excerpt as culling “relevant data,” without specifying the source of the data, the account explicitly states that data was later extracted from the Racing Form. The earlier data had to be culled from someplace and that someplace was most likely also the Racing Form.
In other words, the BRISNET “fortune” is based on copying a database, the Racing Form’s. Of course, this same copying is now something that they don’t want anyone doing with their information. For example, the above article also describes how BRIS sued someone who was re-selling data from their website.
It brings to mind this quote from Honore de Balzac:
“Behind every great fortune there is a crime.”
The irony is that it’s only a crime in BRIS’ eyes today when someone copies their data just as the founder copied data from the Form. The fact is that it’s still not a crime to copy data because data, such as the data sold by BRIS, Equibase and The Racing Form, cannot be copyrighted under US law.