1. Protection of Databases Richard Warner

2. In the United States  Merely factual compilations of data in databases receive no copyright protection. Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340, 113 L. Ed. 2d 358, 111 S. Ct. 1282 (1991). So in eBay, for example, the database of seller information receives no copyright protection.  The rationale: copyright inheres in original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium. A merely factual compilation is not sufficiently “original.”

3. In the EU  In the EU, a database owner has the right  “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” when  “there has been qualitatively and/or quantitatively a substantial investment in either the obtaining, verification or presentation of the contents.”

4. British Horseracing Board Ltd v. William Hill Organization Ltd  The British Horseracing Board (BHB) maintains a database of information about horse races  William Hill Organization is an off-track betting service; the dispute concerns its web site over which it takes bets on horse races. William Hill used a information on this web site obtained from the BHB database without the consent of BHB.

5. British Horseracing Board Ltd v. William Hill Organization Ltd  They used a “substantial part” of the data base, and BHB made a “substantial investment” in the database (£4 million a year).  The court found that William Hill violated BHB’s right “to prevent extraction and/or re- utilization.”

6. Criticism from the Scientific Community  The Database Directive says that member states may allow the free "extraction" of database contents if used "for the purposes of illustration for teaching or scientific research" as long as the source is acknowledged, and "to the extent justified by the noncommercial purpose to be achieved."  The fair-use exception is not mandatory, and France, Greece, and Italy have not incorporated it into their version of the Directive.

7. An Overbroad Right  The right is subject to the same criticisms as the trespass to chattels right recognized in eBay.  To see how broad the right is, consider the definition of a database: “For the purposes of this Directive, '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.”

8. An Overbroad Right  This means that any web site is a database. The web pages are “a collection of... materials arranged in a systematic or methodical way and individually accessible by electronic or other means.”  The reasons for rejecting an unrestricted trespass to chattels right are reasons for rejecting the broad right recognized by the EU.