Duomenų bazių sui generis teisinės apsaugos sąlygos
| Date Issued |
|---|
2006 |
Straipsnio tikslas yra išanalizuoti sąlygas, kurioms esant duomenų bazėms suteikiama sui generis teisinė apsauga. Siekiant iškelto tikslo analizuojami Europos Sąjungos ir Lietuvos Respublikos teisės aktai, Europos Teisingumo Teismo ir Europos Sąjungos valstybių narių nacionalinių teismų sprendimai, teisės teoretikų darbai. Pirmoje darbo dalyje analizuojamos duomenų bazių sui generis teisinės apsaugos sąlygos, suformuluotos 1996 m. Europos Parlamento ir Tarybos direktyvoje dėl duomenų bazių teisinės apsaugos ir šių sąlygų interpretacija Europos Sąjungos valstybių narių teismų praktikoje ir teisės doktrinoje iki Europos Teisingumo Teismo 2004 metų preliminariųjų nutarimų. Antroji darbo dalis skirta duomenų bazių sui generis teisinės apsaugos sąlygų išaiškinimui 2004 metų lapkričio 9 dienos Europos Teisingumo Teismo preliminariuose nutarimuose. Straipsnyje remiamasi istoriniu, sisteminiu, loginiu, lingvistiniu tyrimo metodais.
Databases are very important items but it is not complicated to reproduce them. Thus appropriate legal protection should be given to databases. Case law in Europe and in the USA revealed that copyright protection of databases is not sufficient, because many databases do not meet originality requirement and are not protected by copyright. This was the reason why Directive 96/9 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the legal protection of databases has introduced a new sui generis right to protect the makers of databases. According to Article 7 of the Directive in order to get sui generis rights the maker of a database must show that there has been qualitatively and/or quantitatively a substantial investment in either the obtaining, verification or presentation of the contents. Case law and theory interprets qualitatively investment as intellectual efforts and quantitatively investment as expenditures of money, time, effort and energy. Requirement that investment should be substantial is more complicated. Some commentators hold that the level of investment may be low, others considers it should be high. The most puzzled is the last requirement that investment must be made in either the obtaining, verification or presentation of the contents of the database. The 'spin-off doctrine' which originated in Netherlands holds that databases which are by-products of other activities are excluded from protection. But this theory was not universally accepted.The courts of four Member States (the United Kingdom, Greece, Sweden and Finland) have been confronted with the question of the application of the spin-off theory and have decided to stay proceedings and ask preliminary rulings to the European Court of Justice.