Dugie - WIPO Urged to Give Up On Database Protection

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Random-bits] Dugie - WIPO Urged to Give Up On Database
Protection
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 20:33:56 -0400
From: James Love <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2004 WASHINGTON INTERNET DAILY—3

WIPO Urged to Give Up On Database Protection

GENEVA -- The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
should rethink several items on its digital agenda, several
panelists said Mon. at the Transatlantic Consumers Dialog (TACD)
conference here on WIPO’s future. One is the European Union’s
(EU) directive entitling nonoriginal databases to copyright
protection are controversial in some quarters. That directive is
making their way through WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright &
Related Rights (SCCR), and one member of that group urged that
such “unfinished business” be put to rest so WIPO can move on to
other issues. Others want to see the idea disappear entirely.

At issue is whether nonoriginal databases should continue to
receive copyright protection under a 1996 directive.  The EC
believes the item should remain on the committee’s agenda because
such protection would spur availability of nonoriginal databases,
Wezenbeek said. At the SCCR’s last meeting, in June, several
countries urged the item be deleted, but Wezenbeek said more time
is needed for discussion.

Rogier Wezenbeek, administrator-copyright & related rights in the
EC’s Internal Market directorate-gen, was asked about studies
indicating protection for nonoriginal databases would have no
advantage over no protection.

In the U.S., govt.-generated data are free, and there’s some
evidence that system works better than the EU’s, an audience
member said. WIPO has done 6 studies, not all supportive of the
need for database protection, Wezenbeek  said. The EC is now
awaiting a decision in the European Court of Justice on a case
concerning the U.K.’s interpretation of the EC’s database
directive, he said. One element required under the directive for
copyright protection for a nonoriginal database is that it
involve “substantial investment,” he told us. But “substantial”
has yet to be defined. The court is also expected to rule on
whether such issues should be decided on the European level or
left to member states’ courts, he said. The U.K.’s interpretation
will be “authoritative,” he said. It’s the first consideration,
at the EU level, of the sui generis database right.

The directive requires the EC to report on its effectiveness, a
study that’s “a few years late,” Wezenbeek said. It will take
into account all criticisms of the law as well as the court’s
decision, he said. Developing countries don’t yet understand how
databases can work as development tools for them, he said, but
among those who represent the copyright side, there’s strong
support for the directive in member states. -- Dugie Standeford

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