US Congressional Committee Approves Database Bill

On January 21, 2004, the US House Judiciary Committee approved a Bill entitled The Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act. If passed, any person who makes available in commerce a qualitatively substantial part of a database generated, gathered, or maintained by another person without authorization would be exposed to civil liability, subject to certain provisos. Plaintiffs would be able to recover actual damages sustained and profits, with courts having the discretionary power to apply an additional damage award up to two times the actual damage amount. There would be exemptions for non-profit, educational, scientific, or research institutions, and government databases would not be affected. The introduction of the Bill was backed by large database companies such as Reed Elsevier and Thomson. Its supporters believe that such protection is necessary in order to stop competitors from extracting proprietary information from databases at the expense of the creator. One of the Bill's most prominent critics, the US Chamber of Commerce, has argued that database owners have adequate protection via contract law. Others doubt that the proponents of the new legislation have demonstrated that existing statutes are insufficient to protect database owners. Further, some critics charge that the proposed legislation is an attempt to circumvent the leading US Supreme Court decision in Feist Publications Inc v Rural Telephone Service Co which rejected the "sweat of the brow" approach and held that facts, in themselves, are not capable of copyright protection. The Bill is expected to shortly go to the House floor in preparation for a possible vote. To learn more about the proposed Act, visit: http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-5145040.html. To view the text of the Bill, see: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:H.R.3261. Summary by: Colin Adams