Page 224 - A Study on the Role of UGC Platforms in Copyright Law：An Intermediary-oriented Approach

A Study on the Role of UGC Platforms in Copyright Law: Chapter 7 Platform Users’ Entitlement to UGCs: Human Use and Web Scraping
An Intermediary-oriented Approach

over the application of sui generis protection to the re-use of public data. 94
2) The United States
The US has not provided sui generis protection for databases yet. In the 1990s, when
the EU passed the Database Directive, the US also entertained five proposals for database
95
protection, but none of them passed. The first was H.R. 3531, introduced in May 1996. It
infused the sui generis database right with even stronger and longer protection than the EU
96
Database Directive, but it failed due to its overprotection of database makers. H.R. 2652
97
was introduced a year later. Learning from its antecedent, H.R. 2652 was styled as a tort-
based bill rather than an intellectual property right regime. Nevertheless, H.R. 2652 adopted
almost the same substantive tests as H.R. 3531, and thus suffered the same failure. The
third bill, H.R. 354, was introduced in January 1991 with provisions that were similar to the
previous bill. One remarkable change was the introduction of the reasonable use provision
98
99
omitted by its predecessors. However, the reasonable use provision was too vague to work
practically. Accompanied by the concern over data monopoly, H.R. 354 also failed. A more
100
modest bill, H.R. 1858, was introduced two months later. It reduced database infringement
101
to parasitical copying and allowed the reutilisation of databases to create new databases. A
102
misuse provision was introduced to cope with the sole-source database problem that its EU
103
counterpart had failed to solve. H.R. 354 and 1858 were more user-friendly and received
104
more positive feedback than the other two bills. However, because the committee staffs
failed to produce a compromise between H.R. 354 and H.R. 1858, both bills died at the end
th
th
of the 106 Congress. During the 106 Congress, another bill for database protection, S. 95,
105
was proposed. Although it ultimately failed, it ushered in a new perspective of database
protection. The other bills had focused on how to increase database protection. The S. 95 bill
approached it from the opposite direction, suggesting that any limitation on the dissemination
of stock trading information by any medium of mass communication should be prohibited.
106

94 European Commission, Evaluation of Directive 96/9/EC on the Legal Protection of Databases (n 75) 41.
th
95 H.R.3531 - 104 Congress (1995-1996), Database Investment and Intellectual Property Antipiracy Act.
96 Jonathan Band and Makoto Kono, ‘The Database Protection Debate in the 106th Congress’ (2001) 62 Ohio State Law Journal
869, 869.
th
97 H.R.2652 - 105 Congress (1997-1998), Collections of Information Antipiracy Act.
98 H.R.354 - 106th Congress (1999-2000), Collections of Information Antipiracy Act.
99 Band and Kono (n 96) 872.
100 Ibid.
101 H.R.1858 - 106th Congress (1999-2000), Consumer and Investor Access to Information Act.
102 Band and Kono (n 96) 874.
103 Ibid.
104 Ibid.
105 S.95 - 106th Congress (1999-2000), Trading Information Act.
106 Band and Kono (n 96) 875.

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