<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> </head> <body text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff"> Been meaning to say, Del, entirely agree. Best regards, David Boyce. <blockquote type="cite"> I see your point as it pertains to telephone lists—a poor example on my part. However, I would suggest that Steinway’s parts and price list goes well beyond a collection of publically available facts that Steinway is required to compile under law and therefore should be free for the taking. Or, as has been happening on Pianotech, copied and publically distributed at will.   The same Wikipedia article also says: “Since facts are purely copied from the world around us, O'Connor concludes, "the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sine_qua_non">sine qua non</a> of copyright is originality". However, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality" title="Threshold of originality">standard for creativity</a> is extremely low. It need not be novel, rather it only needs to possess a "spark" or "minimal degree" of creativity to be protected by copyright.”   Knowing a little something about how price lists are created I can assure you that any company’s parts and price list is considerably more than a collection of publicly available facts that can be “purely copied from the world around us.” The quantity and cost of raw materials has to be estimated and analyzed; the amount and cost of factory labor has to be determined; indirect costs such as warehousing and transportation around the factory floor have to be estimated; some amount of factory burden has to be estimated and added to other costs; the cost of pulling the part from assembly, assigning it to tech services and estimating tech services costs have to be estimated; and the list goes on. Few, if any, of these times and costs are publically available facts, nor are they absolutes; they take analysis, thought and, yes, a certain amount of creativity to create.   ddf   </blockquote> </body> </html>