Abstract:
The protection of the intellectual investments embodied in databases is of
the utmost importance. Technological innovation has rendered databases
vulnerable to unauthorised access, reproduction, adaptation and publication.
The copyright protection of databases is not always adequate to
address the protection of non-original databases. Vast collections of data are
thus vulnerable to information security threats. The European Union enacted
a sui generis form of protection for non-original databases. A decade later
a review of the first court decisions reveal paltry databases protection. The
sui generis layer of IP protection in the EU has thus not led to innovation
and growth in the European database industry. Courts' restrictions on the
protection of "single-source databases" and the interpretation of the
substantial investment requirement have contributed to the low level of
database right adoption. The action of database owners against deep linking
has proved to be much more effective than the database right. South Africa,
as developing country, should devise its own strategies to cope with the
proliferation of protectionism within the context of the widening digital
divide. The database right seems to be "copy wrong" for now.