Customer Reviews (1)

Summary as of 1997 (still pretty current in 2007)
At around the time that the Database Directive was passed in the EU, the US was exploring whether databases would have enough legal protection in the context of the internet where it's very easy to copy lots of data quickly.This report was prepared to give an overview of existing legal protection and to explore and predict future trends in protection.Much of it is still current, since pushes for extra database protection have kind of fizzled in the US since the 1990s.It was pretty easy to weed out the dated bits as I read it.

This covers existing legal protection (via unfair competition, copyright, etc), ways that database producers might alter their practices to get legal protection after Feist v. Rural (where the Supreme Court stated that creativity is a prerequisite for copyright protection), an analysis of then pending bill HR 3531 (this bill didn't pass, this section is the most dated of the book), trends on database protection in other countries, etc.An aspect that I found particularly helpful is that the Copyright Office held meetings with parties that had an interest in database protection, and it sounds as if they tried to get a good spectrum of interested parties and be comprehensive about it.This report informally reports on those meetings.There are no transcripts or quotes, but the report will say that this gorup (database producers / scientists / librarians /etc) was adamently for this issue or that this group was split on this issue.

I read this in 2007 for a paper I was writing.It was well organized and still very helpful to me even 10 years later.I was not able to find a more recent comprehensive report on this subject, so even if you are using more recent sources, you should have a look at this to double check for gaps.

A print copy reduces the eyestrain, but right now the only used copy is 121$ - dang, it makes me want to sell both the library copies at my university!You would do better to search this and get the report off the Copyright Office's website, where it is available in pdf for posterity.The author is the Register of Copyrights (Marybeth Peters), jsut to double check that you get the document I'm talking about.Ease of access is one of the points in favor of this report also. ... Read more