Databases are a key and valuable tool in business. They are created and used for many different purposes, from keeping track of customers’ accounts, stock control and use in direct marketing to keeping and maintaining patient healthcare records. The functions served by databases are almost endless and they are used in every sort of business in the private and public sectors and every profession. Databases range from the very simple, such as a handwritten shopping list or directory of friends’ and relatives’ addresses and telephone numbers, to the extremely large and complex, such as those operated by airlines, the DVLA and HM Revenue and Customs. Databases can be very expensive to create and maintain. It was reckoned that the database of racehorses, jockeys, trainers and horserace meetings costs the British Horseracing Board around £4 million per annum to maintain and to generate lists of runners and riders, handicaps, etc. for each horserace.1 It is fitting, therefore, that databases are afforded sound and effective protection against unauthorised use and copying. Databases used to be protected as compilations, a form of literary work under copyright law. However, there were worrying signs that database protection was limited and many valuable databases that were the result of a substantial investment might not be protected under copyright law. The concerns were reinforced by a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that confirmed that there was no place for the ‘sweat of the brow’ doctrine in copyright.