Creative Commons Licenses: What to Do with the Database Right?

Contrary to other types of open content licenses, Creative Commons licenses are intended to be translated and adapted to the laws of a maximum of jurisdictions in the world. Local or regional peculiarities of the copyright regime can sometimes require an adaptation to the licenses that would disrupt their worldwide similarity. This article focuses on one of these peculiarities: the European sui generis database right. It describes how the database right was excluded from the scope of the Creative Commons licenses and discusses the possible consequences of such an exclusion for the Creative Commons movement and for the users of the licenses in Europe.