

Europe's 'Database Right' Could Throttle Open Data Moves There - pjbrow
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130211/08050521945/europes-database-right-could-throttle-open-data-moves-there.shtml

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alexkus
It all depends on the context. Many small websites were threatened with legal
action if they displayed more than a couple of weeks' worth of football
(soccer) fixtures on their site. The claim was that the data was part of a
copyrighted database.

Luckily (and advsior at) the ECJ saw it differently. I don't think it has been
officially challenged in court yet...

[http://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2011/december/football-
fi...](http://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2011/december/football-fixtures-not-
protected-by-database-copyright-says-ecj-advisor/#content)

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briandear
If it's a taxpayer-funded database it ought to be free. However, privately
created databases shouldn't necessarily be free.. It costs money to assemble
data, even public records, so for someone to do the work of compilation and
have that work be unprotected will provide a disincentive for people to create
the databases in the first place.

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7952
I agree with the sentiment that tax funded data should be free. But in
practice it is more complicated. American Government data seems to either be
free and open access or completely restricted for security reasons. In the EU
publicly funded projects tend to require payment but have better data
availability. This is particularly obvious with remote sensing satellites
where the NASA/USGS budget for public-good projects is severely restricted.
Payment at the right price is not always a bad thing if it makes projects
viable. Especially when they wouldn't be viable without asking for payment
from end users.

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speeder
Europeans seemly have some Schizophrenic policies sometimes.

I mean, there are fields (like IP) where they make the best, and worst laws,
at the same time.

They don't decide if they want freedom or not it seems.

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sdoering
Coming from Germany, my opinion is, that the question is, which lobby is the
strongest at the moment, these laws are conceived.

The EU is (imho) not really much more, than an undemocratic playing field for
industrial lobbies. Nearly nobody cares for the EU parliament (the only
elected body in the EU).

If some countries have a strong law in some cases - and can convince (or
blackmail) others, to go the same route - good for everybody, when it comes
EU-"law". But if the EU goes the pro industry, contra people-way... bad for
everybody.

Just my two cents, after watching for more then ten years and seeing this
stuff happen again and again...

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jacquesm
> the only elected body in the EU

You mean the only elected body with EU wide reach. There are many more elected
bodies within the EU but their reach is limited to smaller chunks of
geography.

And even the EU parliament does not actually have reach across the EU because
not all countries have ratified the same set of rules. So it's possible for
countries to have seats in the EU parliament which passes laws which then do
not affect some of those countries in the same way. It's quite messy.

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sdoering
Yes, that was what I menat. Not the only body, but the only directly elected
body as an EU-institution.

