ABSTRACT
This chapter summarises some of the research carried out for a PhD entitled, ‘The legal and institutional restrictions upon the handling of digital land-related data’. It presents a review of what is meant by rights and interests in data. The chapter examines what is meant by information and data and how well the current legal framework protects interests in data. It focuses more upon the best method of protecting interests in a dataset rather than whether or not those rights are justified. The chapter suggests that the current legal framework is inadequate for protecting rights in data. It proposes a new method of protecting rights which is based upon the examination of the full spectrum of current intellectual property and real property law as well as the history of copyright. The chapter concludes with a brief assessment of the practicalities of implementing the proposed method of protecting rights in data.
