Hi Gail -- Although you don't phrase your question in terms of Internet research, I infer that is what you are thinking about. There are certainly many copyright suits in non-Internet research contexts, but most of the automated data retrieval suits to date have occurred in a commercial context. I am in fairly regular contact with counsel at Google, where demands to remove stored material occur pretty much daily. We (my co-authors and I) are anticipating that the focus on commercial archives will change as 'bots are increasingly used as research tools. We are already aware of researchers who have recieved formal demand letters, or have otherwise received objections from web site owners, after multiple server hits. As to "false light" claims for data mining: a little outside my area, but I am not aware of such claims, and consider them unlikely. Since data mining by definition involves identification of trends in large data sets, situations where the result is both false and affects individual reputation would probably be rare. To the extent that it might occur, I would expect a claim to be more likely outside the U.S., where there is no actual malice and/or publication rule standard to constrain the claim. (There have, for example, been some highly unfortunate hypertext defamation decisions in Germany, where group defamation claims are sometimes possible.) Regards, DLB On 7 Jun 2005, GTa3411203@aol.com wrote:

Dan,

Thanks for sharing the information relating to copyright laws and web pages. I am aware of these limitations/restrictions which accounts for raising the questions. It would be interesting to know whether anyone conducting research

has ever been sued for infringing on copyright laws or, on another related topic, slander due to data mining in a way that takes things from one context and puts them into another. Ideas?

Gail

----------------------------------------- Gail Taylor, Ed.M. Human Resource Education Ph.D. Student University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Dan L. Burk Visiting Professor Cornell Law School Myron Taylor Hall Ithaca, NY 14853 USA Oppenheimer, Wolff & Donnelly Professor University of Minnesota Law School 229 19th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA *************************************** Voice: 612-626-8726 Fax: 612-625-2011