In March 2010, UK publisher Datateam Business Media or DBM, contracted a third party called Your Response or YR, to manage its database of subscribers. As part of this agreement, YR was given access to the database to perform its management duties. After a year or so, DBM became dissatisfied with YR services and sought to terminate their contract. A dispute arose when DBM refused to pay the fees it owed to YR until YR return the database which had been moved to its own servers. In response to non-payment of fees, YR discontinued providing services prior to the agreed termination date of the contract, yet refused to give DBM access to the database in its control. This case ultimately found its way to the England and Wales Court of Appeal in 2014. YR had argued that the database should be considered a physical object because it exists in a physical form and therefore should be held as a lean. YR also argue that it maintained physical control over the database just as if it were a document. Therefore, they should be able to claim ownership of it. The court, however, rejected these arguments ruling that whilst the physical medium and the rights are treated as property, the information itself has never been and that rendering a database as physical property would upend property rights law resulting in, "Unanticipated consequences in other contexts." Not every justice agreed. Lord Justice Davis, wrote in dissension, "The courts should not leave the common law possessory lien stuck in its 18th and 19th century origins and development rather the courts should go on to give it a 21st century application appropriate to modern times and modern commercial activities. That appeal to modernism has its attractions." Even as the court ruled information should not be considered property, it also acknowledged such a ruling was based on ignorant notions of information and antiquated property laws, whereas we now live in an electronic world in which information holds legitimate commercial value. Where does this leave an organization whose executives, business leaders, information leaders and even legal counsel believe and speak about information ownership and behave as if it legally owns, not just possesses, information? There are a number of related questions we're going to address in this module. Some have answers, some have bad answers and some are still open questions, we'll discuss. They include, what legal precedent exists for claiming ownership of information, do present accounting principles help in answering questions of information ownership? What about the casual use of the term information owners used within organizations? Do we even own personal information about ourselves and if we can't own information per say, is there something related to it that we can claim ownership of?
