[lazyjones]

IANAL but in the EU at least, even databases comprised of simple "facts" are protected.

It's a sad state of affairs when i'm not even allowed to scrape data generated using taxpayers' money, like the (required by EU laws) noise maps for cities, which I'd like to use to augment real estate offers, for example.

[Symbiote]

"Europe" would like to partially fund that noise database with income from businesses that use it. The result is less taxpayer money us needed.

I think it's only the UK that has copyrightable fact databases

[techdragon]

Except that doesn't happen because the last thing a new business idea needs is more red tape, paperwork and expenditure.