3. Identify the protection regime for your databases

Databases benefit from an original system of legal protection, based on two principles:

• the structure of the database may be protected by copyright;

• the content of the database, i.e. the data as a whole, is protected under certain conditions by a specific right known as the database producer's right or sui generis right.

Unlike data, databases therefore benefit from a specific protection regime. These two systems of protection are cumulative: the database producer's right, or sui generis right, applies in addition to and independently of copyright, which may also protect original databases, as well as the data themselves.

Alternatively, the ordinary law of obligations, civil liability and criminal law may, in certain situations, provide effective...