Template:Derived information: Difference between revisions

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{{confiprov|Derived information}}, the fecund fruits of the {{confiprov|receiver}}’s own creative juice and analytical energy, worked upon information given to the {{confiprov|receiver}} by the {{confiprov|discloser}}, is in no sense “[[proprietary]]” to the {{confiprov|disclosing party}}<ref>If the {{confiprov|disclosed information}} ever was [[proprietary]] in the first place, that is — if it doesn’t qualify as [[intellectual property]] it isn’t, or course.</ref>, and may indeed be as commercially sensitive<ref>And more deserving of protection: applying some analytics to raw trading data may convert it from un-ownable data to creatively juicy [[intellectual property]], of course.</ref> to the {{confiprov|receiving party}} as the material the disclosing party gave, and on which it was based, it in the first place: think of Paul’s middle eight about having a shave and catching the bus in ''A Day in the Life''. We are in danger of getting into the jurisprudential wisdom of treating intellectual endeavour as if it were tangible [[property]] — but let’s not go there just now.<ref>Those who can’t resist the siren call, start with [[Lawrence Lessig]]’s fabulous {{br|Code: Version 2.0}}.</ref>
{{confiprov|Derived information}}, the fecund fruits of the {{confiprov|receiver}}’s own creative juice and analytical energy, worked upon information given to the {{confiprov|receiver}} by the {{confiprov|discloser}}, is in no sense “[[proprietary]]” to the {{confiprov|disclosing party}}<ref>If the {{confiprov|disclosed information}} ever was [[proprietary]] in the first place, that is — if it doesn’t qualify as [[intellectual property]] it isn’t, or course.</ref>, and may indeed be as commercially sensitive<ref>And more deserving of protection: applying some analytics to raw trading data may convert it from un-ownable data to creatively juicy [[intellectual property]], of course.</ref> to the {{confiprov|receiving party}} as the material the disclosing party gave, and on which it was based, it in the first place: think of Paul’s middle eight about having a shave and catching the bus in ''A Day in the Life''. We are in danger of getting into the jurisprudential wisdom of treating intellectual endeavour as if it were tangible [[property]] — but let’s not go there just now.<ref>Those who can’t resist the siren call, start with [[Lawrence Lessig]]’s fabulous {{br|Code: Version 2.0}}.</ref>


Ok, let’s go there. If the {{confiprov|information}} in question not, in the first place, ''mine'' — that is to say, it isn’t [[intellectual property]] in the first place, then the question arises why I should be able to stop you deriving your own intellectual property out of it. This boils down to whether it was secret or can be somehow configured as proprietary. If you would not have had the data any other way, then I am giving up something by letting you have it. It might not be proprietary, but it is secret.
Actually, no: let’s do go there. If the {{confiprov|information}} in question not, in the first place, ''mine'' — that is to say, it isn’t [[intellectual property]] in the first place, then the question arises ''why'' I should be able to stop you deriving your own intellectual property out of it. This boils down to whether it was just secret data, but didn’t have any proprietary qualities, or whether it can be somehow configured as proprietary, ''owned'' information.  
 
If it is only secret data, it does not have the quality intellectual property at all, so the receiving party’s act in deriving some new type of creative work out of it is a novel thing, owes nothing to the discloser’s disclosure, builds on no intellectual property of the disclosure, and should not be restricted at all. What loss could there be? The data still cannot be disclosed to anyone in a way that would betray the discloser’s confidence, but the derivation may well achieve exactly that: Say you give me a secret data document of a thousand characters on it (i.e., [[data]], and not [[intellectual property]] as such), on condition that I keep it confidential. Let’s say I rearrange the thousand characters into a sonnet (which ''is'' susceptible of copyright protection) — for argument’s sake, not even adding any new characters. Must I destroy that sonnet, or return it to you, under a confidentiality covenent? Humble report, sir, the answer is no.
 
If the information you have given me ''is'' copyrighted then ''the agreement you need is a licence'', not an NDA. And you ''can'' control, within limits, by the law of copyright, from derived works.