This afternoon the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property Committee on the Judiciary approved the Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act of 2003, (H.R. 3261). See my previous postings on this legislation here and here. The Chair of the Committee, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), one of the bill’s co-sponsors, stated: “Databases require substantial investments of time, personnel and money…Information companies must dedicate resources to gathering and verifying factual material, presenting it in a user-friendly way, and keeping it current. In cyberspace, technological developments represent a threat as well as an opportunity for collections of information. Digitally copying factual material from a third party’s collection, and using it to form a competing information product is cheaper and easier than ever.” [Link]