Abstract

“Web 2.0” and “User Generated Content” (UGC) are the new
buzzwords in cyberspace. In recent years, law and policy makers have struggled to keep pace with the needs of digital natives in terms of online content control in the new participatory web culture. Much of the discourse about intellectual property rights in this context revolves around copyright law; for example, who owns copyright in works generated by multiple people, and what happens when these joint authored works borrow from existing copyright works in terms of derivative works rights and the fair use defense. Many works compiled by groups are subject to creative commons licenses and may only be reproduced on similar terms. While many of these copyright questions remain unanswered, little attention has yet been given to the application of the sui generis database right created under the European Union Database Directive in the Web 2.0 context. This article takes up issues relating to the application of the Database Directive to compilations of data in the Web 2.0 universe. Wikipedia forms the basis of a case study for the purposes of examining the extent to which the Directive may impact the operations of Web 2.0 services involving significant amounts of UGC.