[GSDI Legal Econ] new report on legal aspects relaing to geospatial respositories

[Roger Longhorn]

Computer programmes and databases (compilations of data) are covered by 
Article 10 of the TRIPS Agreement - Trade-related Aspects of 
Intellectual Property Rights - of the World Trade Organisation, see below:

<begins>

Article 10

Computer Programs and Compilations of Data

1. Computer programs, whether in source or object code, shall be 
protected as literary works under the Berne Convention (1971).

2. Compilations of data or other material, whether in machine readable 
or other form, which by reason of the selection or arrangement of their 
contents constitute intellectual creations shall be protected as such. 
Such protection, which shall not extend to the data or material itself, 
shall be without prejudice to any copyright subsisting in the data or 
material itself.

<ends>

Throughout the EU Member States, databases receive protection from the 
Database Protection Directive of 1996 (DIR 96/9/EC) and the first 
evaluation reports of its effectiveness (or not) are now available. All 
information on the Directive and reports, etc. can be found on the EC 
web site at:

http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/prot-databases/prot-databases_en.htm

Kind regards

Roger Longhorn
ral at alum.mit.edu

Kate Lance wrote:

> Are databases covered under copyright or database right?
>  
> The GRADE project (Geospatial Repository for Academic Deposit and 
> Extraction, http://edina.ac.uk/projects/grade/), run by EDINA at the 
> University of Edinburgh has been investigating the technical and 
> cultural issues around the reuse of geospatial data in learning, 
> teaching and research environments of UK academia.  The project has 
> just completed a legal report on copyright and the database 
> directive.  It can be accessed at: 
>  
> http://edina.ac.uk/projects/grade/gradeDigitalRightsIssues.pdf
> Designing a licensing strategy for sharing and re-use of geospatial 
> data in the academic sector
> by Charlotte Waelde Co-Director of the AHRC Research Centre into 
> Studies on Intellectual Property and Technology Law
>  
> See also the blog by Mike Smith at Kingston Centre of GIS -- Copyright 
> or database right... Does it matter?
> http://www.journalofmaps.com/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi/GIS/GRADE_Waelde.html
>  
> GRADE also made live a new version of the GRADE geospatial repository 
> demonstrator (which has a map-based geospatial search function and GIS 
> file verification stage in the submit stages): 
> http://gradedemo.edina.ac.uk/dspace/index.jsp
>  
> As the project comes to a close in its current form, they are inviting 
> feedback (in general about the ethos of the project and what they are 
> trying to achieve, as well as about the functions and user-interface 
> of the GRADE repository) -- see User Survey at 
> http://edina.ac.uk/projects/grade/survey2.html
>
> The results of the Informal geospatial data-sharing questionnaire are 
> worth a look - some interim results were summarized in a October 2006 
> presentation:
> http://edina.ac.uk/projects/grade/meetings/301006.html
> http://edina.ac.uk/projects/grade/ppt/Survey_results_allpartner_oct06.ppt
> (e.g., despite the many efforts in metadata creation and search 
> tools, manual access (on CDs) and email are still the most common 
> ways people find geospatial data; main barrier to geospatial 
> data-sharing is confusion over rights and permissions).
>  
> Regards,
>  
> Kate 
>  
>  
>
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