The preceding chapters have involved a detailed analysis of the legal position concerning the Directive and American proposals for sui generis protection of databases. Chapter 6 examined the moves by the EU to spread the Directive's model for database protection throughout Europe and to other regions via multilateral and bilateral agreements. This chapter examines some of the justifications for sui generis protection of databases and recommends some key aspects of any future legislation or international agreement that provide sui generis protection of databases.

It does so by firstly looking at the arguments for sui generis protection. Part of this section draws upon the economic justifications for intellectual property regimes as discussed by Posner and Landes. At the same time, the costs of creating intellectual property regimes as identified by Posner and Landes are discussed in the context of databases. In the course of this discussion, this section of the chapter deals with some of the particular problems associated with the economics of information, particularly those associated with treating information as a commodity. It is possible to treat information as a commodity and, in many cases, desirable to do so. The critical issue is determining the nature of that commodity and the nature of the rights that should be given in relation to it. One of the particular difficulties in this area is that information tends to be treated as homogenous when, in fact, it is not. Consequently, different types of databases and different uses of databases need to be treated differently.