Database Protection: Lessons from Europe, Congress, and WIPO

Case Western Reserve Law Review Volume 57 | Issue 4 February 2016 Database Protection: Lessons from Europe, Congress, and WIPO Mark Davison Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/caselrev Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Mark Davison, Database Protection: Lessons from Europe, Congress, and WIPO, 57 Case W. Res. L. Rev. 829 () Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/caselrev/vol57/iss4/9 This Symposium is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Journals at Case Western Reserve University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Case Western Reserve Law Review by an authorized administrator of Case Western Reserve University School of Law Scholarly Commons. DATABASE PROTECTION: LESSONS FROM EUROPE, CONGRESS, AND WIPO Mark Davison t In 1996, the European Community ("the EC") adopted a Directive on the legal protection of databases ("the Directive"),' ostensibly with the aim of increasing the production of databases within the EC.2 Most members of the EC transposed the Directive into their domestic legislation in 1998 and all of them had done so by the end of 2000. In 2005, an evaluation of the Directive by the EC concluded that there was no proven impact of the Directive on the production of databases. So an entirely new intellectual property right was created with its attendant costs and the evidence suggests that no benefit was gained from its creation. It is difficult to draw any conclusion other than that the adoption of the Directive was a mistake. t Professor, Faculty of Law, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. This Article is based on remarks presented on November 10, 2006 at the Case Western Reserve Law, Technology, and the Arts Symposium: The WIPO Copyright Treaties: 10 Years Later. I Council Directive 96/9, On the Legal Protection of Databases 1996 O.J. (L77) 20 (EC). 2 Recitals 11 and 12 of the Directive read as follows: (11) Whereas there is at present a very great imbalance in the level of investment in the database sector both as between the Member States and between the Community and the world's largest database-producing third countries; (12) Whereas such an investment in modern information storage and processing systems will not take place within the Community unless a stable and uniform legal protection regime is introduced for the protection of the rights of makers of databases. Id. 3 Commission of the European Communities, DG Internal Market and Services Working Paper: First Evaluation of Directive 9619/EC on the Legal Protection of Databases (Dec. 12, 2005) (unpublished working paper), available at http://ec.europa.eu/intemalmarket/ copyright/doc/databases/evaluation-report-en.pdf. 830 CASE WESTERN RESERVE LA W REVIEW [Vol. 57:4 In such circumstances, it is important that the legal community, broadly defined, reflects on the nature of the mistake and how to avoid similar mistakes in the future. It is also important to note that the United States of America ("the U.S.") and WIPO have managed to avoid repeating the EC's error despite considerable pressure to follow the EC's lead. In addition, even though it probably should not exist, the right does exist and practitioners have to deal with it. This paper addresses the following issues: 1. What the Directive does and how it has been applied, especially in the light of the decisions of the European Court of Justice ("the ECJ") on its interpretation; 2. The process by which the Directive was adopted; 3. American legislative proposals for database protection and the processes responsible for the opposition to new database legislation; 4. Attempts at WIPO to turn the essence of the Directive into an international treaty; and 5. Lessons to be learned from the database debate in the EC, the US, and at WIPO. WHAT THE DIRECTIVE DOES The Directive had two overarching objectives. The first was the objective of every regulation, edict, directive, or other document emerging from the EC and that is the harmonization of laws within 4 EC. the For example, Recitals 2 and 3 of the Directive read as follows: (2) Whereas such differences in the legal protection of databases offered by the legislation of the Member States have direct negative effects on the functioning of the internal market as regards databases and in particular on the freedom of natural and legal persons to provide on-line database goods and services on the basis of harmonized legal arrangements throughout the Community; whereas such differences could well become more pronounced as Member States introduce new legislation in this field, which is now taking on an increasingly international dimension; (3) Whereas existing differences distorting the functioning of the internal market need to be removed and new ones prevented from arising, while differences not adversely affecting the functioning of the internal market or the development of an information market within the Community need not be removed or prevented from arising. 2007] DATABASE PROTECTION The second objective was to increase the protection for databases or at least European databases while simultaneously harmonizing the relevant level of protection. 5 Prior to the Directive, protection for databases was conferred via different means in different Member States of the EC. Different forms of unfair competition laws applied in some countries while in others, sweat of the brow copyright provided significant protection to databases.6 The EC could have achieved the first objective of harmonization by decreasing the protection conferred in some countries. For example, it could have done away with "sweat of the brow" copyright for databases in some jurisdictions such as England and Ireland and simply replaced it with a higher, FeistT-like standard of originality. But it went further. It created a new right for database owners. So the Directive was about harmonization and increasing protection for databases with the latter intended to increase the production of databases in Europe by providing legal protection for the investment in their creation. WHAT DID THE DIRECTIVE Do IN RELATION TO COPYRIGHT? Article 3 of the Directive provides for a common standard of originality for copyright in databases. 1. In accordance with this Directive, databases which, by reason of the selection or arrangement of their contents, constitute the author's own intellectual creation shall be protected as such by copyright. No other criteria shall be applied to determine their eligibility for that protection. 2. The copyright protection of databases provided for by this Directive shall not extend to their contents and shall be without prejudice to any rights subsisting in those contents themselves.8 Council Directive 96/9, supra note 1, at 20. 5 See id. (recitals 11 and 12). 6 For a discussion of the details of the application of the various unfair competition regimes on database protection and the (...truncated)