On Sun, Feb 25, 2018 at 01:47:51PM +0100, Ole Streicher wrote: > Your other argument (with article 7) has nothing do do with copyright: > even when this article applies to a database, it is still not > (necessarily) copyright protected. Article 7 just claims that the maker > of a database *may* protect his work; but as long as he does not do > this, there are no restrictions. This is the opposite to copyright, > where the default is restrictive and the copyright owner may grant you > rights. And it also is possible only for 15 years.
I'm not sure if I'm not understanding what you mean correctly. The Directive is not a modification to copyright, but EU member countries modify their copyright laws to include those protections. Each country have its local laws. In Spain, the copyright law it's not even called "copyright", it is called the LPI, but the word "Copyright" is still recognised for compatibility with the Berne Convention. The declaration has many differencies with the US definition of copyright, for example, definition of "fair use" is not compatible, the "public domain" concept doen't even exist (though it is usually considered safe to import and use public domain works from countries which do define it), and thousands of other differences. So, it's easier to refer to the text of the Directive directly rather than to individual copyright declarations for each country under their own legal jurisdiction. I think that's what is confusing you into thinking that it is nothing to do with Copyright (or maybe I'm not understanding your point, I'm not sure). I hope it's more clear now. The modification of Spanish copyright declaration was published on "BOE", which is the official document that informs about those changes. It was recorded in BOE-A-1998-5568, it's in Spanish but if you feel interested you can search it online at http://www.boe.es/ and translate it (hopefully the translator don't mess too much with it, law articles are writen in a very specific form). All requirements of the database directive has been included into the Spanish copyright law. So well, I don't understand why you say that it has nothing to do with copyright, sure it does. If you read the Spanish LPI with its modifications, you'll see that a database or collection of things can now be copyrighted (and actually it is automatically copyrighted and protected like any other work). The copyright law is extended so it includes all those provisions required by the database directive, including the protection of collections of works that are factual, non-artistic, non-creative, when the creator of the colletion has invested time and/or effort in the validation process, etc... I personally think that the choosen wording provides even more than required by the database directive, which makes easier to claim copyright for trivial things wrapped into databases, unfortunately. Yes, there had been opposition, specially at first, but time has passed and the modified copyright law is still being used (and abused). It seems that you don't believe me when I say that I've seen databases of trivial things beign enforced, and that's fine, not trusting random persons over the Internet is OK. Writing in English takes a long time for me so please excuse me if I don't continue to explain how copyright works in my country. If you want to research and see it by yourself, you are welcome.
