Data mining and copyright: A bittersweet technology gift for copyright owners and the Malaysian public?

The Age of Big Data is marked by an explosion of digital information that is captured by new digital technologies. The volume, velocity and variability of the data that is captured surpass the processing capacity of the human mind. Understanding text contents and correlations can no longer be performed without the intervention of technology. Data mining refers to the process of using software techniques to analyze large amounts of data sets in order to discover useful information. The information is usually in the form of patterns or relationships that might otherwise not be observed if scanned by the human eye and is therefore useful for many industries in predicting future trends. However, data mining involves the reproduction of databases and, accordingly, raises copyright issues. The objective of this paper is two-fold. First, it identifies the copyright issues arising from data mining and analyses its legality under Malaysian copyright law. Secondly, it discusses how copyright law can play a role to regulate data mining so as to protect database owners without hindering the public interest to enjoy the benefits of data mining. It concludes by recommending how the Malaysian Copyright Act 1987 may be amended in order to strike a balance between the competing interests of database owners and that of the public so that the benefits of data mining may be optimised.