The IP Protection of Electronic Databases: Copyright or Copywrong?

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.