From: Jack Correia <jcorreia@fiona.umsmed.edu>
  To  : rasmb@bbri.eri.harvard.edu
  Date: Mon, 22 May 95 14:30:20 -0500

Re: Database

        The issue of the formation of a database has been lively and 
informative.  I standby my previous opinion.  I wish to raise another 
question for consideration of this issue.  The DNA database(s) and the 
Structural Database(s) must have very formal rules that they operate under.  
What data is acceptable and how should it be referenced if used by others.  
I believe that depositing sequence data is now considered a publication.  I 
would suspect that a crystal structure cannot be deposited unless it has 
passed some form of peer review, ie. a paper that is referenced.  They also 
must have some organization that guarantees data integrity.  

        In addition, MCI recently filed a lawsuit againist someone who gave 
their competitors an FTP address of mci.com.  A very recent paper in Nature 
Genetics on linkage to a schizophrenia gene is being investigated because 
one collaborator published data without the other collaborators names as 
authors.  Finally, at a recent internet meeting lawyers were invited to 
speak on the legal aspects of internet use.  Yes, lawyers!!  [What do you 
call a group of more than three lawyers?  Someone here suggested to me 
Shakespeare coined the term slime of lawyers, but I don't think that is 
correct?  Joke!!! - its a Joke!!!]  

        So my questions are - if you deposit raw data in a database who owns 
it, who can publish it, reference it, use it, and what rights do you retain 
once you deposit it?  Isn't this an issue to be considered?  Published data 
is more simple - its published and can be easily referenced.  But then must 
I get permission from the journal to reuse it in a database format, or do I 
retain rights as an author?  If you deposit it, what guarantee do you have 
that it will not be altered in some way.  Even if you deposit an 
interpretation, can the powers that be alter the interpretation but retain 
your name on the deposit without notice of the changes.  I realize this is a 
nasty modern aspect to this business that we might prefer to ignore, but 
doesn't this have to be discussed along with the rules for depositing data.  
Or do we just accept that the Wild Wild Web is a free range with no rules?

jack