Kraków: 18-19 September 2008

The 5th KnowRight Symposium on the Interaction of Informational Rights, Information Technology and Knowledge Management was hosted by the Jagiellonian University, Kraków on the 18 to 19 September 2008. The title of the KnowRight 2008 symposium was: Knowledge Rights - Legal, Societal and Related Technological Aspects. One of major topics of the symposium was related to the access and re-use of Public Sector Information covering the following aspects:

• Freedom of information and data protection
• Access to public documents
• Legal framework of public sector information reuse
• Socioeconomic conditions of PSI reuse
• Extent of and limitations on database protection in Europe
• Long term archiving of public and private information

Symposium papers and presentations related to public sector information within the programme included:

Does the Directive on the Re-use of the Public Sector Information affect the State's database sui generis right? Estelle Derclaye, University of Nottingham, UK

Abstract

“The Database Directive, which created a new database sui generis right and harmonised the copyright provisions for databases, does not exclude “state databases” from protection. The question is whether the state should benefit from such intellectual property protection. De lege ferenda, it has been advocated that neither copyright nor sui generis right should protect such databases for several reasons, a major one being that they are financed by taxpayer’s money. Several solutions exist de lege lata to try and curtail this negative aspect of the Database Directive as applicable to “state databases” (mainly the human right to information and competition law). One solution, specific to the situation of the state, has not been discussed in depth yet. It is provided by the Public Sector Information (PSI) Directive which grants the possibility for anyone to re-use public sector information (and therefore data from state databases) free of charge or at minimal cost, even for commercial purposes. Therefore, even if the state could claim sui generis right on some of its databases, the PSI Directive appears to reduce this right quite substantially. The paper examines in detail whether the PSI Directive does actually do so and analyses some national implementation laws which further highlight its ineffectiveness in curtailing the sui generis right in state databases. It then proposes solutions to remedy this problem.”

The conclusions of the paper on page 33 and 34include the statement:

“Public sector information needs to be freed now not in five or ten years’ time.”