A Serpent Eating Its Tail: The Database Directive Meets the Open Data Directive

As part of its broader digital strategy, the European Commission has articulated a data strategy. Its aim is to help grow “the use of, and demand for, data and data-enabled products and services throughout the Single Market”. ^{In the eyes of the EC, promoting wider availability and use of data would stimulate not just “greater productivity and competitive markets, but also improvements in health and well-being, environment, transparent governance and convenient public services”. That is quite a shopping list. The data strategy has ramifications for intellectual property law, especially for the sui generis database right enshrined in the 1996 Database Directive.}