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Copyright Issues in Databases

  • Reference work entry
Encyclopedia of Database Systems

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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...

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  6. Ginsburg J.C. Copyright, common law, and sui generis protection of databases in the United States and abroad, University of Cincinnati Law Rev., 66:151–176, 1997.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Villanova University School of Law, Villanova, PA, USA

    Michael W. Carroll

Authors
  1. Michael W. Carroll
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 266 Ferst Drive, 30332-0765, Atlanta, GA, USA

    LING LIU (Professor) (Professor)

  2. Database Research Group David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, N2L 3G1, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    M. TAMER ÖZSU (Professor and Director, University Research Chair) (Professor and Director, University Research Chair)

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© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

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Carroll, M.W. (2009). Copyright Issues in Databases. In: LIU, L., ÖZSU, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-39940-9_875

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