ABSTRACT
One of the most controversial acts of EU harmonization in the field of copyright law, and one of the first copyright directives, was without doubt Directive 96/9/EC on the legal protection of databases. Many of its definitions, the narrow scope of its exceptions and the lack of coordination with general copyright law have been heavily criticized. Yet, the most challenged and discussed provision was and remains its Article 7, which introduced as a worldwide novelty the so-called sui generis right.
The aim of the Directive was to create two paths for database protection, depending on their degree of originality. The first was conceived for databases that were original in structure and arrangement and used traditional copyright protection. The second was envisioned for databases that did not meet this originality threshold, but still required a substantial investment in obtaining, verifying and presenting their content, an investment which the EU legislator wanted to incentivize by protecting database makers from parasitic behaviors, unfair competition and freeriding …
Sganga, Caterina, Sui Generis Protection of Non-Creative Databases (September 19, 2023) in E Bonadio and P Goold (eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Investment-Driven Intellectual Property, Cambridge University Press, 2023, pp 27-53.
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