[cookiecaper]

Most prominently, a mere collection of facts can be copyrighted by someone in Europe as long as that entity spent substantial effort collecting/collating/displaying it (the "Database Directive"). In the US, a minimum amount of creativity is required before a work is considered copyrightable per Feist v. Rural Telephone Co.. This can have a serious effect on which datasets are free for your program to use.

Both the US and the EU have a long history of shutting down companies that incorporate "screen scraping" to gather data, even if that data is freely available or owned by the entity controlling the scraper. But the EU may shut you down whether you contact someone's server or not, on the basis of violating database ownership.

I'm not a lawyer in either jurisdiction so this is just based on my layman's knowledge and may not be complete.

[bduerst]

I guess I don't get the database IP laws - are they copyrighting the actual information or the source of the information?