Re: European Directive on the legal protection of databases
Jacobo Tarrio <jtarrio@trasno.net> wrote:
> To whom it may concern:
>
> The following URL displays the text of the Directive, available in all 11
> official languages of the EU (so you'll have no problem reading it :-))
>
> http://europa.eu.int/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexapi!prod!CELEXnumdoc&lg=en&numdoc=31996L0009&model=guichett
Thanks a lot. In there, I found
(56) Whereas the right to prevent unauthorized extraction and/or
re-utilization in respect of a database should apply to databases
whose makers are nationals or habitual residents of third
countries or to those produced by legal persons not established
in a Member State, within the meaning of the Treaty, only if such
third countries offer comparable protection to databases produced
by nationals of a Member State or persons who have their habitual
residence in the territory of the Community;
which sounds a lot like databases in the US are not covered by this
directive. However, this is only the rationale. In the actual
directive, Article 11 states
3. Agreements extending the right provided for in Article 7 to
databases made in third countries and falling outside the
provisions of paragraphs 1 and 2 shall be concluded by the
Council acting on a proposal from the Commission. The term of any
protection extended to databases by virtue of that procedure
shall not exceed that available pursuant to Article 10.
Does anyone know what the Council decided to do for databases in third
countries? If they followed the rationale, they didn't extend
protection to works produced in countries that don't protect databases.
As a side note, Article 14 says that the directive is retroactive.
So, at this point, I'm happy to assume that the word-list was created
in the US, and thus not protected in the EU. So aspell-en should be
fine to go into main and mirrored throughout the world.
Regards,
Walter Landry
wlandry@ucsd.edu
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