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Weaker database bill gets House committee vote

Headshot of Declan McCullagh
Headshot of Declan McCullagh
Declan McCullagh Former Senior Writer
Declan McCullagh is the chief political correspondent for CNET. You can e-mail him or follow him on Twitter as declanm. Declan previously was a reporter for Time and the Washington bureau chief for Wired and wrote the Taking Liberties section and Other People's Money column for CBS News' Web site.
Declan McCullagh
An unusual political brouhaha is developing in the U.S. House of Representatives, where two committees are jousting over how much legal protection databases deserve. On Wednesday, the House voted for a limited version of a database bill, delivering the political slap in the face to the House Judiciary committee, which approved a much stronger version of the legislation in January.

Arguing that existing copyright law is sufficient, tech firms and lobby groups, including Amazon.com, AT&T, Comcast, Google, Yahoo and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, had opposed the stronger bill. The decision on which version--if any--to send to the floor for a vote now rests with the House Republican leadership.