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View the related practice notes about Maker of database

Copyright in databases and database right

Databases, especially electronic databases, have for some time now made up an important sector of digital economies around the world. Many jurisdictions see investment in and exploitation of databases to be a vital tool in the development of an information market.In the UK, the key legislation relevant to the protection of databases through IP are:•the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988)•the Copyright and Rights in Databases Regulations 1997 (CRD 1997), SI 1997/3032, which implement Directive 96/9/EC on the legal protection of databases (EU Database Directive) in the UKA database can be protected in different ways:•copyright can protect literary and artistic works including tables and compilations that form part of a database (literary copyright for tables and compilations was removed for databases by CDPA 1988, s 3(1)(a)), if they are original works•copyright can also protect the structure of a database under CDPA 1988, ss 3–3A which gave effect to Article 3 of the EU Database Directive, if it is an original literary work. The test of originality is that...