Vol 7 No 1 - Roger Williams University School of Law

emedies set forth in section 1406.This Act proposed to protect databases for up to fifteen years.56 Amore “user friendly” proposal was the Consumer and InvestorAccess to Information Act.57 Variations of both proposals are stillbeing considered.58 Canada and Australia do not have a suigeneris regime for database protection although both countrieshave been examining the issue for some time.An interesting question is whether the Commerce Clausecould be used to legislate such sui generis database rights inAustralia or the United States. This issue is dealt with more fullybelow; suffice to say, at this point the answer depends on whetherthe IP clause is seen to guarantee an individual’s right to accessraw data, override other federal constitutional clauses.While the Canadian59 and Australian courts may not giveexactly the same definition to the terms, there could be littleconjecture that “copyright,” as listed in the respectiveconstitutions, embodies notions of independent creation and amodicum of creativity.60 However, a recent case in Australiaconcerning telephone directories has suggested that“compilations” may not require intellectual input (creativity) tosecure copyright protection.In Telstra Corporation Limited v. Desktop Marketing SystemsPty. Ltd.,61 Judge Finkelstein of the Federal Court of Australiaheld that Australia’s leading telecommunications provider,Telstra, could maintain an action for copyright infringement basedon their white and yellow pages telephone directories.62 In that56. Id. § 1408.57. H.R. 1858, 106th Cong. (1999).58. See Reichman & Samuelson, supra note 22; see also, Charles R. McManis &Christopher R. Alder, Database Protection in the Digital Information Age, 7 RogerWilliams Univ. L. Rev. 9 (2001).59. See Tele-Direct (Publications) Inc. v. Am. Bus. Info. Inc., [1997] 154 D.L.R. 4th328 (Can.).60. See e.g., Kalamazoo (Austl.) Pty. Ltd. v. Compact Bus. Sys. Pty. Ltd. (1985) 5I.P.R. 213 (Austl.); ITP Pty. Ltd. v. United Capital Pty. Ltd. (1985) 5 I.P.R. 315 (Austl.);Ladbroke (Football) Ltd. v. William Hill (Football) Ltd., [1964] 1 W.L.R. 273 (Eng.); cf.G A Cramp & Sons Ltd. v. Frank Smythson Ltd. [1944] A.C. 329 (Austl.); Vaver, supranote 19, at 41-45; see also Copyright Law Review Committee, Report on theSimplification of the Copyright Act, 1968, Part 2, Categorisation of Subject Matter andExclusive Rights and Other Issues, paras. 5.42-.47 (1999) (noting their views on theproduction of copyright material with computers), at http://www.agps.gov.au/clrc.61. [2001] F.C.A. 612.62. Id. at para. 147.