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Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

Copyright does not prevent you from independently building a set of data that someone else has already built, it merely protects against copying their set verbatim.

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Right but the ACM is the ultimate source of the data. They own the conference, the paper selection processes and hence the list of papers. It's hard to argue that this list was compiled without _ever_ looking at the ACM's list. It's a grey area for sure, and you could argue that if you go to the conference and simply observe the presenters and their paper titles, or even just ask the authors "Did you get a siggraph paper in? What was the title?" then that is your data, but by the same logic I can go to the World Series and live-blog a play-by-play account of the game, which would surely get me sued. (Maybe people do this I don't know I don't follow sports, but I know that the leagues claim copyright over accounts and descriptions, regardless of whether they actually have those rights.)

Going to the world series of poker is slightly different as there's potentially a contract established between you and the promoters via your ticket.

I haven't been to siggraph, but for $1,175 ( http://www.siggraph.org/s2010/for_attendees/registration ) there's surely a potential for a contract between you and the ACM via your conference registration.

Also, copyright holders don't need to enter into a contract to assert their rights. You don't enter into a contract when you watch TV but you still don't get the right copy and distribute shows (or sporting events) that you watch.

you still don't get the right copy and distribute shows (or sporting events) that you watch

But you can make a page that links to the network's website where the TV shows are downloadable for free.

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