19^th International CODATA Conference
Category: Open Communication

The Law and Ethics of Database Protection in Europe and the US

Dr. Maria Canellopoulou Bottis
Ionian University, Lawyer, Faculty Fellow in Ethics, Harvard University 2000-2001, Greece

In the last decade, there has been an intense legal debate about whether non-original databases deserve new legal protective measures to provide the incentive to create databases and to be able to recover costs and investment. Europe has offered this strong protection with a new sui generis right which protects non-original databases, with a European Directive on databases, implemented today in all European countries. The US has until now resisted this trend. However, scientific communities have sternly opposed this legislation, as granting rights and monopolies to data themselves and as blocking progress, while also threatening scientists with a neved known before civil, and perhaps criminal, liability. Who is right? Is a balance possible? What do we learn from the European and American case law so far and which is the correct solution of this legal, but also ethical controversy?