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22. Learned senior counsel referred to the treaties of David Bainbridge on Software Copyright Law (fourth edition) to emphasise that what the defendants had taken away was something in which the plaintiff had a copyright as list of clients and their addresses or full text of various documents or set of co- ordinates would fall within the same. In chapter 6 dealing with databases it was observed as under:

INTRODUCTION A computer database is a collection of information stored on computer media. The information may be a list of clients and their addresses or the full text of various documents or a set of co-ordinates relation to a three- dimensional building structure or a collection of representations of pre- Raphaelite paintings. The range of things which may be included in a computer database is enormous. The information contained in the database may be confidential and protected by the law of breach of confidence but what is the copyright position' The simplest way of looking at a computer database is to consider the work it represents, for example, a printed listing of names and addresses, a printed set of documents or drawings of buildings or a collection of paintings. Those works may be protected individually by copyright as literary or artistic works as appropriate but the collection of works may also be protected additionally and separately by copyright and/or the database right, notwithstanding the separate copyrights subsisting in the individual works. This is an important point. In terms of databases, copyright can exist at two levels, at the level of the individual works contained in the database and at the level of the database itself as a form of work in its own right. The database Page 1887 may have protection by the database right which came into existence on 1 January 1998.
A computer database is a collection of information stored on computer media. The information may be a list of clients and their addresses or it may be the full text of various documents or it may be a set of co-ordinates relating to a three-dimensional building structure. The range of things which may be included in a computer database is enormous. The information contained in the database may, itself, be confidential and protected by the law of breach of confidence but what of the copyright position The simplest way of looking at a computer database is to consider the work it represents, for example a printed listing of names and addresses, a printed set of documents or a drawing of a building. Those works are protected by copyright as literary or artistic works. It does not matter if the work is never produced on paper and only ever exists on computer storage media.
Example: XYZ Supplies Ltd. has a computer database containing names, addresses, telephone and fax numbers of customers. This database has been developed over a couple of years and it is usual for a new customer's details to be entered directly into the computer by XYZ's telesales' staff without a written record being made.
The customer database is protected by copyright as an original literary work (assuming a modicum of skill and judgment is involved in compiling the database, for example, if the telesales staff have to exercise judgment in deciding whether to accept a new customer). Being a compilation, it is a literary work. By storing the information in a database, it has been recorded in 'writing or otherwise' as required by the Act ('Writing' is Page 1888 defined widely and includes any form of notation or code regardless of the method or medium of storage). Even if the database is never printed out on paper, it will be protected by copyright.

84. There is no dispute that the work falls within the definition of literary work within the meaning of Section 2(o) of the Copyright Act as the definition include computer database. Section 17 provides that the first owner of the copyright is the owner but the same is subject to various proviso including proviso (c) which makes the work during a contract of service to subsist in the employer. Thus the work done by the defendants for the benefit of the clients of the plaintiff would fall within the definition of contract of service. This is of course apart from the fact that even if it was not so the same would not make a difference to the result in the present case as the element of breach of trust or confidence can hardly be a factor to be ignored specially in view of provisions of Section 16 of the Copyright Act.