From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2012 23:38:44 -0400

People interested in this topic may wish to see the article by Matthew
Sag on "nonexpressive" rights, that is, rights for machine reading
that is not protected by copyright:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1257086

I see this paper cited all the time.  My non-legal understanding is
that copyright only protects things that humans can read.  Things that
machines can read are exempted.  The implication of this (if I
understand Sag properly) is that data-mining does not require the
permission of copyright holders.

When I first heard this argument, I imagined a situation where someone
grabbed someone else by the throat and strangled him.  The actor was
tried for murder.  But in a subsequent case, someone programmed a
computer to fire a gun, which in turn killed someone.  the machine got
off scot-free.

These are dark times for the creative class.

Joe Esposito