Abstract
Your company has just spent a substantial almount of time and money over the last year compiling a database of all libraries in the world which have Internet connections, or a database verifying the names, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, and biographies of every cardiologist in the world, or a list of every beach in Massachusetts with warm water (admittedly one of the world's shortest lists) to meet even the most finicky child's objections. Until now, you would probably not, other than in the United Kingdom, have been able to prevent a competitor from copying these compilations word-for-word, especially if the compilations were in print. But the adoption by the European Union of the Directive on Databases promises to entirely change the legal status of databases, not just in the European Union, but on a world-wide basis.