To the best of my understanding, CGC's clause is unenforceable because the notes are too generic and non-unique expressions, they are essentially data and copyright law does not protect data. We discussed that earlier in this thread, but mostly in passing--we've discussed it in other threads in much more depth. Here is the Supreme Court case that established you can't copyright data:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_v._Rural

In this case one telephone company sued another telephone company for copying their customer's phone numbers directly from their own telephone book and putting it in a competing phone book...they could tell they did it because they were intentionally putting fake names and numbers in their book and found those fakes in their competitor's phone book. Note the very first line of the Wikipedia article says the case established that "information alone without a minimum of original creativity cannot be protected by copyright." I can't see anything about CGC's notes that doesn't fall within that definition of data--someone correct me if I'm overlooking something.

Now this is PROGRESS

CGC Grader Notes Fee Reduction
Dear valued CGC members,

Many of you have voiced your concerns about the new fee structure for obtaining CGC Grader Notes online. We believe the original fees were fair, based on the time and expertise required of the CGC graders, but we wanted to grant access to this information to as many people as possible. We have considered all of your feedback and have decided to reduce the Grader Notes fees on comics and magazines submitted under Standard and higher tiers.

The revised CGC Grader Notes fees are:

• Economy, Value and Modern — $5 (no change)
• Express and Standard — $10
• WalkThru — $15

At the same time, we are also creating a new Elite level of the CGC Collectors Society that offers members a 20% discount on the reduced Grader Notes fees, as well as 15% off grading fees on regular submissions. Dealers will receive the same 20% discount on Grader Notes.

There were significant upfront costs to make Grader Notes available, and there remains a considerable commitment to maintain the database and process new requests. While we had previously offered Grader Notes for free over the phone, the volume of calls had reached a point where graders spent hours on the phone each day, and their time is best spent grading new submissions. We want to continue to make these notes available to collectors and dealers, but to do so we must charge a modest fee. We believe the reduced fees are an appropriate middle ground that accommodates the best interests of collectors, dealers and CGC.

Thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely,

CGC Management

Good move CGC

Email from CGC last night at 8:05PM.

I still think graders notes should be supplied free of charge to the submitter, printed out and included in the box with the newly slabbed books.