[OSM-legal-talk] Database and its contents

[Grant Slater]

On 23 November 2010 14:42, Ed Avis <eda at waniasset.com> wrote:
> Francis Davey <fjmd1a at ...> writes:
>
>>>If I remember correctly, UK have recently excluded databases from copyright
>>>protection since 1997
>
>>Not quite. A database may attract either database right, copyright or
>>both. The change to database copyright (as opposed to database right)
>>is that copyright in a database has a harmonised subsistence threshold
>>across Europe ("own intellectual creation").
>
> Thanks for clarifying this.
>
> Does this mean, then, that every country which has a database right also has
> database copyright?  (Perhaps there are some countries outside Europe which
> hold databases to be protectable via sui generis right but not via copyright.)
>

No copyright and database-right are not universal the world over, this
is why the ODbL, to create a balanced open playing field, uses 3
different approaches to the problem; copyright, contract and database
right.

Regards
 Grant