Legal protection of databases.

Abstract

The legal protection of databases constitutes a new area of law, establishing a different approach to the conferral of intellectual property rights by setting up a two-tier system of protection consisting of two different independent rights. The need to establish such a regime of protection emanates from the necessity of protecting the economic value of databases. Furthermore the need was felt on a European level to adopt a measure, the Database Directive, approximating the various forms of copyright protection that were available to databases, or to the 'old' compilations, and establishing a 'new' right common to all Member States granting protection for investment in databases. In order to achieve this goal, the definitions of 'databases' throughout the EU have been harmonized so that it consists of a collection of independent material, which can be of various types, arranged in a systematic or methodical way and individually accessible. The level of originality that must be satisfied for the purposes of copyright protection has also been harmonized so that in all EU Member States a database must constitute, by reason of the selection or arrangement of the contents, the author's own intellectual creation. Ergo, intellectual creativity has to be expended in relation to the structure of the database. A new sui generis right in respect of databases, having the nature of a property right, has been created and is conferred to makers by reason of the substantial investment had by them in either the obtaining, verification or presentation of the contents. Therefore, whereas copyright refers to creativity, understood in accordance with the traditional conception of copyright, the sui generis right is more linked with financial harm against which makers have to be protected Nevertheless, both rights aim at protecting the said economic value of databases.