[OSM-legal-talk] Database and its contents

[Francis Davey]

On 23 November 2010 17:08, Ed Avis <eda at waniasset.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks.  My followup question - which is not quite so much a question of pure
> fact, and addressed not to you but to the list in general - is that if database
> copyright applies wherever database right does, why not use copyright alone?

Because it is much harder for a database to attract copyright
protection than sui generis protection - especially for "data
collectors" like OSMF.

Database copyright arises when the database is the author's "own
intellectual creation". That means that some design or creativity has
to have gone into the database - it can't simply be an assemblage of
facts.

Example: the football fixtures list for the English premier league
require lots of thought (so the league convinced a judge) to design,
so the collection of items of information of the form Arsenal v
Chelsea, Tuesday 10pm at Emirates, has database copyright (and because
the league produce it for their own purposes they don't get sui
generis protection).

Database right arises when there is a "substantial investment". It
focuses on work not creativity. Lots of work in making a database
won't get you copyright but may get you database right.

It is much more likely that OSMF attracts database right than database
copyright.

>
> If I've misunderstood what 'database copyright' means, and it's not as strong
> as ordinary copyright, please correct me.

It may depend on what you mean by "not as strong as". They are just
different things. Its best not to think of them in the same way.
Although quite a few provisions are imported from copyright, there's a
lot that is different. For example you infringe copyright by doing one
of a list of things (copying etc) whereas you infringe database right
by extraction or reutlisation (of a substantial part...).

-- 
Francis Davey