On 23 November 2010 17:08, Ed Avis <e...@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 _______________________________________________ legal-talk mailing list legal-t...@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk