Synonyms
Intellectual property; License
Definition
Copyright is a set of exclusive rights granted by law to authors of original works of authorship. It applies automatically as soon as an original work is created and fixed in a tangible medium of expression, such as when it is stored on a hard disk. Originality requires independent creation by the author and a modicum of creativity. Copyright covers only an author’s original expression. Facts and ideas are not copyrightable. Copyright usually applies only partially to databases. Copyrightable expression usually is found in database structures, such as the selection and arrangement of field names, unless these do not reflect any creativity or are standard within an area of research. Copyright will also apply to creative data, such as photographs or expressive and sufficiently long text entries. By and large, the rule on facts and ideas means that most numerical data, scientific results, other factual data, and short text entries are not...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsRecommended Reading
American Dental Association v. Delta Dental Plans Ass’n, 126 F.3d 977 (7th Cir.1997).
Assessment Technologies of WI, LLC v. WIRE data, Inc., 350 F.3d 640 (7th Cir. 2003).
Bellsouth Advertising & Publishing Corp. v. Donnelly Information Publishing, Inc., 999 F.2d 1436 (11th Cir. 1993) (en banc).
CCC Information Services, Inc. v. MacLean Hunter Market Reports, Inc., 44 F.3d 61 (2d Cir. 1994).
Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991).
Ginsburg JC. Copyright, common law, and sui generis protection of databases in the United States and abroad. Univ Cinci Law Rev. 1997;66:151–76.
Key Publications, Inc. v. Chinatown Today Publishing Enterprises, Inc., 945 F.2d 509 (2d Cir. 1991).
New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. v. Intercontinental Exchange, Inc., 497 F.3d 109, (2d Cir. 2007).
Southco, Inc. v. Kanebridge Corp., 390 F.3d 276 (3d Cir. 2004) (en banc).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature
About this entry
Cite this entry
Carroll, M.W. (2018). Copyright Issues in Databases. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8265-9_875
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8265-9_875
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-8266-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-8265-9
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceReference Module Computer Science and Engineering