Protecting a copyrighted database

[Ike]

Our company has compiled a very large database of products used in a
professional field. We use this data to create catalogs for
distributors of these products (at a cost far less than what they can
manually do it themselves). Many of the distributors would like access
to our data to create their web sites.

We would like to lease our database, but doing so would create a
Pandora's box scenario. Once we give it to them, we cannot get it back
when the lease is up. A good half of these distributors do not feel we
have a valid copyright on our data as a collective body of work even
though two different law firms have advised us we have a clearly
defined copyright.

Is there some way to make our database accessible to these
distributor's web sites, maintain control of it, prevent them from
copying it, and cut them off when their lease expires? Thanks.

 

[storrboy]

Our company has compiled a very large database of products used in a
professional field. We use this data to create catalogs for
distributors of these products (at a cost far less than what they can
manually do it themselves). Many of the distributors would like access
to our data to create their web sites.

We would like to lease our database, but doing so would create a
Pandora's box scenario. Once we give it to them, we cannot get it back
when the lease is up. A good half of these distributors do not feel we
have a valid copyright on our data as a collective body of work even
though two different law firms have advised us we have a clearly
defined copyright.

Is there some way to make our database accessible to these
distributor's web sites, maintain control of it, prevent them from
copying it, and cut them off when their lease expires? Thanks.

This is the eternal question in software production. Boils down to:
1) Make sure you can prove copyright ownership
2) Display the notice of ownership
3) Include a license agreement with software that can be as legally
binding as possible.
4) Apply the requried/afforded technologies to limit piracy and
infingment
5) Enforce with big ugly lawyers holding a grudge against man-kind.

Even Microsoft hasn't accomplished all these tasks. How many copies of
Windows are out there unpaid for?

 

[punjab_tom]

you _CAN_ use SQL Server and put some sort of timeout mechanism inside
of it.. it wouldn't be that hard to do.

SQL Server supports concepts such as DDL encryption; so you could do a
lot of things like this that just aren't possible using MS Access.

Access MDB is for people that are too old to learn SQL. I would fire
anyone using MDB for anything and then spit upon them.

-Tom
DBA

 

[punjab_tom]

I would honestly just find a SQL Server consulting agency.

What might work best would be to keep all of the data in your office
(or on your server at a COLO) and then use Web Services in order to
allow some customers to get to the data.


SQL Server 2005 has 'native web services'

and it's secure; you can use HTTPS for example

I don't think that it would cost me a grand to setup something like
this.

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

Is there some way to make our database accessible to these
distributor's web sites, maintain control of it, prevent them from
copying it, and cut them off when their lease expires? Thanks.

I doubt it very much without you retaining the data on your own
servers and dishing it out as required.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm

 

[Ike]

I doubt it very much without you retaining the data on your own
servers and dishing it out as required.

Tony

That scenario would work for us if it were possible to give the client
a minimal database that included the manufacturer name and order
number. I am thinking their server would pass the mfr name and number
to our server and our server would act as the transparent host (to the
end user) for the additional product information, images, etc. to
their web site. Is this feasible?

 

[storrboy]

That scenario would work for us if it were possible to give the client
a minimal database that included the manufacturer name and order
number. I am thinking their server would pass the mfr name and number
to our server and our server would act as the transparent host (to the
end user) for the additional product information, images, etc. to
their web site. Is this feasible?

If you're serious about implementing this kind of service, talk to a
person/company that specializes in web services. They would know all
the tricks, pitfalls and gotchas.

 

[Bob Butler]

That scenario would work for us if it were possible to give the client
a minimal database that included the manufacturer name and order
number. I am thinking their server would pass the mfr name and number
to our server and our server would act as the transparent host (to the
end user) for the additional product information, images, etc. to
their web site. Is this feasible?

And what happens when they just run through all the values in the minimal
database and query for the full data? That would let them store it all on
their own database.

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

That scenario would work for us if it were possible to give the client
a minimal database that included the manufacturer name and order
number. I am thinking their server would pass the mfr name and number
to our server and our server would act as the transparent host (to the
end user) for the additional product information, images, etc. to
their web site. Is this feasible?

That might work. Not quite what I was thinking.

However Bob kindly explained how that process wouldn't work either.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm

 

[Ike]

That might work. Not quite what I was thinking.

However Bob kindly explained how that process wouldn't work either.

To date the only solution we have come up with is to turn the
individual product information in their catalog into a GIF file. We
would provide them with one image that includes the product image,
product name, description, order number and prices just like it
appears in the catalog, except that the image would be for only one
product anf the text would be rasterized as part of the image. When
one of their web site users would click on a product name to get
additional information, another web page or a pop up window would
include the expanded product information GIF file. The fact that the
text is part of the image would be transparent to the user (unless
someone tried to copy-and-paste the text).

We realize that someone could hire people to retype the information
into a database or use OCR. It would still be a major undertaking to
do this. Our goal is to provide our clients with a workable solution
that falls short of giving them our live data.

I appreciate everyone's input. If any of you have some other solution
I would be grateful to hear it.

 

[Don Leverton]

I'll add my $0.02 here

My philosopy is that the TABLES (data) belong to the customer, but
everything else ( FORMS, REPORTS, MODULES and any code) are MINE.

I believe that is why Microsoft included a database splitter ... Forms,
reports etc in the front-end ... tables in the back-end.

IOW ... if they want to develop their own app, import the data into Excel
(yuck) or hire someone else ... that's thier perogative.

Don

 

[storrboy]

I agree. If it's their data. Although I was originally considering the
application more than the data. I believe the OP is essentially
talking about providing access to a catalog and now that I think about
it if it were web based, perhaps the only thing they can do is
copyright the application and hope that the service is convenient
enough for others to not bother duplicating it o copying the contents
- especially if the products are of other manufacturers.

 

[Ike]

I agree. If it's their data. Although I was originally considering the
application more than the data. I believe the OP is essentially
talking about providing access to a catalog and now that I think about
it if it were web based, perhaps the only thing they can do is
copyright the application and hope that the service is convenient
enough for others to not bother duplicating it o copying the contents
- especially if the products are of other manufacturers.

Ours is a completely different situation. We did not create the data
for any particular client. We created it for our own use and add to it
as needed. We have a copyright on it as a collective body of work
which took us years to produce. We offer a catalog production service
that costs a small fraction of the cost of producing a catalog by
standard production methods. Our copyright is clearly stated up front.

Our problem is not with the client who has signed our agreement
spelling everything out. They have a very thorough understanding of
who owns what. The potential problem is with the web design companies
and their subcontractors who are not aware of our copyright, have not
signed our agreement, or who do not believe our copyright is valid.

 

[Michael Shaw]

Depending on the availability of programming resources one approach you
might consider involves developing a "service" to run on your server which
would provide an interface to subscribers to access your data. You might
also develop client software to download to subscribers for interfacing with
the service which would provide you added control over access to your data.
Such clients/servers are frequently coded in VB or C# using the Dot.Net
technologies. Other approaches/technologies may be used as well (possibly
VBA, I'm not sure). It is a sophisticated (ie. not trivial) solution but
used for the exact reasons you mentioned.

Good Luck,
Mike

 

[Earl]

As the character Gordon Gecko noted in the movie Wall Street, "The most
valuable commodity I know of is information. Wouldn't you agree?"

How delicious the irony. If you are in the U.S., your lawyer has probably
informed you that your copyright only covers the arrangement of the data,
not the data itself. Your database design and any printed compilation can be
copyrighted, but not the contents within (the U.S. Supreme Court has weighed
in on this several times, most specifically on a case involving data from a
phone book company).

Nonetheless, copyrighting data is a hotly-disputed topic. Here are some
scenarios: Prospect information for a geographical territory. There are a
number of companies who sell that data to real estate companies, politicians
and so forth. But who owns that data? The compiler would like to think they
do, but the reality is that the data itself is in the public domain -- it's
only the compilation structure that can be copyrighted (still, it is quite
funny to hear a company tell you that they "own" your name, address, phone
number, and other personal data). Once I stuff 100,000 names and phone
numbers into SqlServer, no matter where I got it, you've lost it.

A variation of that would be your situation, where you have a compilation of
products for a particular field. In that case, the data itself is almost
undoubtedly in the public domain, only your compilation and database design
is copyrighted. On the other hand, if you could get someone to sign a
license agreement, then I suspect that they might be bound to that
agreement, notwithstanding copyright law.

Here's another: product information created by and for a specific company
that created the product. You would think that the developing company would
own rights to their own product data. But probably not once they published
it to the public -- they would only own the rights to the design and
compilation.

But someone violating your design copyright is bad enough, what's even
scarier is that everything we create and license ends up copied into some
vault in Bangalore where companies like Tata slice and dice it and use it to
create other projects. And the offshore companies operate according to their
laws, which in some cases is non-existent (even a civilized country like
India has a nearly non-existent civil law). The countries like the U.S. with
strong copyright laws make it a difficult fight -- there are no laws and
there are no facts unless a judge says so. Once you do go to court, the only
people that win are the lawyers. So in your situation, what you might
consider doing is simply licensing the database to your distributors,
although it's true you will never "get it back". So get a big enough fee to
cover the loss.

 

[missinglinq via AccessMonster.com]

"...even though two different law firms have advised us we have a clearly
defined copyright."

I hope at least one of these law firms specializes in intellectual property
law! No matter how good he/she may be, you don't want a gynecologist doing
brain surgery on you!