Case Nos: IL-2023-000080 and IL-2024-000038 - [2025] EWHC 2561 (Ch)

Until the amendment of the 1988 Act in January 1998 in conformity with the Database Directive, databases were not expressly mentioned in it. The same was true of its predecessor the Copyright Act 1956 (‘the 1956 Act’). Databases were nonetheless protected as literary works, subject to the law on such protection at the time. An example is Waterlow Publishers Ltd v Rose [1995] FSR 207, a judgment of the Court of Appeal given in October 1989 in relation to the 1956 Act. The Court confirmed that copyright subsisted in a list of the names and addresses of all solicitors holding practising certificates, being a ‘written table or compilation’ within the meaning of s.48(1) of the 1956 Act and therefore a protectable literary work. Under the 1988 before its 1998 amendment such a database was protected as a literary work in the form of a ‘written .. table or compilation’ within the meaning of s.3(1)(a).

From January 1998 the amended Act expressly excluded databases from the definition of ‘table or compilation’ and added ‘database’ as a separate category of literary work, defined in s.3A(1):