Study in support of the evaluation of Directive 96/9/EC on the legal protection of databases : Annex 2: Economic analysis

The aim of this analysis is to assess the impact of the Database Directive from an economic point of view. It is based on different sorts of relevant evidence, including quantitative data, expert views gathered in a workshop, stakeholder interviews and survey answers. The remaining of this document is structured as follows: First, we provide a comparative analysis of the production of databases in the European Union and third countries based on the records of the GALE Directory of Databases. The second section discusses the impact of the Database Directive based on the accounts of the participants of this study. This is followed by a section presenting an overview of the recent developments of databases (i.e. technological aspects, strategies for database creation, the associated costs and the generation of revenue) and the relevance of databases in the knowledge society. It should be noted that this last section does not focus exclusively on databases protected by the Database Directive, but also on databases that are the by-products of the main activity of the organisation (where the sui generis right does not apply). Finally, a summary of all aspects covered in this Annex is provided in the conclusion.