Congress Again Considering Database Protection Bill

An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo News is reporting on a new bill in Congress: '... a proposed bill that would prevent wholesale copying of school guides, news archives and other databases which do not enjoy copyright protection.'" The idea of database protection legislation has been kicking around for a long time. It's a bad idea, but it would make a lot of money for a few companies, so they keep pushing it, and no doubt will eventually get it passed.

Comments

Re:Where's the "bad" part here?

[cperciva]

That's why database protection is not the same as copyright protection. Database right is normally more restricted in duration (eg, 15 years in the uk) and in scope.

Your hypothetical database "Names of Professional Writers of Manhattan and their Phone Numbers" would not infringe upon the "Names and Phone Numbers of all Manhattan residents" database; but other people would not be allowed to redistributed your database without your permission.

Re:this is a bit silly

[Ulven]

Read this for an overview of the database protection act in the UK. There are also a few case studies of when the act was invoked.

The interesting and slightly worrying part is that even if the data is available to the public online, either in part or in full, it is still protected.

The judge rejected these arguments, ruling that to extract merely meant to transfer to another medium and dismissing as irrelevant the availability of the data via the BHB web site. (My emphasis)

The European version

[infolib]

Is known as the database directive

When reading the directive, remember that the only the articles really have force, not the recitals. A quick selection of quotes:

'database` shall mean a collection of independent works, data or other materials arranged in a systematic or methodical way and individually accessible by electronic or other means.
[...]
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.
[...]
the author of a database shall have the exclusive right to carry out or to authorize:
(a) temporary or permanent reproduction[...]
(b) translation, adaptation[...]
(c) any form of distribution to the public[...]

Member States shall have the option of providing for limitations on the rights set out in Article 5 in the following cases:[...]
(d) where other exceptions to copyright which are traditionally authorized under national law are involved
[...]
SUI GENERIS RIGHT

Article 7

Object of protection
1. Member States shall provide for a right for the maker of a database which shows that there has been qualitatively and/or quantitatively a substantial investment in either the obtaining, verification or presentation of the contents to prevent extraction and/or re-utilization of the whole or of a substantial part, evaluated qualitatively and/or quantitatively, of the contents of that database.
[...]
The right provided for in Article 7 shall run from the date of completion of the making of the database. It shall expire fifteen years from the first of January of the year following the date of completion.

Remember the US Supreme Court's decision...

[e6003]

...in Feist v. Rural Telephone Service Co. (1991). Fesit copied portions of Rural's phone directory to create their own, competing product after Rural refused permission to use it. The Court noted that "sweat of the brow" (i.e. effort alone) is not sufficient to justify copyright protection: there must be an element of creativity as well, and arranging the entries in alphabetical order is not creativity. I'm not a USian but this seems a useful thing to quote in your letters to Congress critters...