O'Reilly.com: Digital Rights: Treasure Trove Looted

Nov 03, 2000, 07:14 (9 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by John Macdonald)

"For years, Eric Weisstein's Treasure Trove Web site, more recently named MathWorld, was a valuable resource on the Web. It contained, among other things, information and code on a wide variety of computer algorithms...."

"Eric Weisstein, the creator of Eric's Treasure Trove, turned the content of the site into a book, The CRC Concise Encyclopedia of Mathematics, published by CRC Press. In the process, CRC Press acquired the copyright ownership of that material--but the extent of what they acquired is the central issue of the dispute."

"For a while, Eric's Web site remained available. Then, at the request of CRC Press, access to the algorithms was limited to items starting with ten letters of the alphabet at a time, but the selection of which ten would be changed each day. Later the limit was removed, though now the site has been shut down completely."

Complete Story

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