Database
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[edit] Background
Databases have always been commodities of both commercial value and social utility, ranging from their early incarnation in the 18th century as directories compiled by walking door to door to the late 20th century compendiums of millions of items in electronic form.
The question of whether and how databases should be protected by the law has never been easy, as it necessarily involves finding a balance between two potentially conflicting societal goals: the goal of providing adequate incentives for their continued production, and the goal of ensuring public access to the information they contain. At different points in time, and in different societies, that balance has been struck in different ways.
[edit] Computer Database
A computer database is a structured collection of records or data that is stored in a computer system so that a computer program or person using a query language can consult it to answer queries. The records retrieved in answer to queries are information that can be used to make decisions. The computer program used to manage and query a database is known as a database management system (DBMS).
The central concept of a database is that of a collection of records, or pieces of information. Typically, for a given database, there is a structural description of the type of facts held in that database: this description is known as a schema. The schema describes the objects that are represented in the database, and the relationships among them. There are a number of different ways of organizing a schema, that is, of modeling the database structure: these are known as database models (or data models). The model in most common use today is the relational model, which in layman's terms represents all information in the form of multiple, related tables each consisting of rows and columns (the formal definition uses mathematical terminology). This model represents relationships by the use of values common to more than one table. Other models such as the hierarchical model and the network model use a more explicit representation of relationships.
The term "database" refers to the collection of related records, and the software should be referred to as the "database management system" or "DBMS." When the context is ambiguous, however, many database administrators and programmers use the term database to cover both meanings.
Many professionals consider a collection of data to constitute a database only if it has certain properties: for example, if the data is managed to ensure its integrity and quality, if it allows shared access by a community of users, if it has a schema, or if it supports a query language. However, there is no definition of these properties that is universally agreed upon.
[edit] EU Database Directive
Under the EU Database Directive, the term "database" is defined as “a collection of independent works, data or other materials arranged in a systematic or methodical way and individually accessible by electronic or other means.”[1] Explicitly excluded from protection under the directive are “computer programs used in the making or operation of databases accessible by electronic means.”[2] Recital (17) expands on the definition:
- [T]he term “database” should be understood to include literary, artistic, musical or other collections of works or collections of other material such as texts, sound, images, numbers, facts, and data; . . . it should cover collections of independent works, data or other materials which are systematically or methodically arranged and can be individually accessed; . . . this means that a recording or an audiovisual, cinematographic, literary or musical work as such does not fall within the scope of this Directive.
[edit] References
- ↑ Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of the European Union of 11 March 1996 on the legal protection of databases, 1996 O.J. (L 77/20), art. 1(2).
- ↑ Id. art. 1(3).
[edit] See also
Copyright protection of databases
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