Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988) databases such as electronic or paper directories would not have qualified as for copyright on the grounds that they were not sufficiently original (for more information, see the Auxilia "Basic Copyright Law"). However, this changed with the implementation of the European Directive on the Legal Protection of Databases with the Copyright and Rights in Database Regulations 1997.
Under these regulations, databases have rights that draw many similarities with copyright. This means that if someone were to copy your database (either entirely or in substantial part) they could be found to be infringing your database right.
However, if someone were to copy just a few entries from your database, there is a possibility that it would not amount to what is termed 'substantial copying'. However, if each of the entries copied had lots of original content, then they themselves could constitute an original work under the CDMA, and so may qualify for copyright.
For more information on this area please contact me using the contact details below.
| author: | Neil Pfister w. www.fishermeredith.co.uk | e. neil.pfister@fishermeredith.co.uk | t. 020 8334 7938 |