Remote Sensing Data: Some Critical Comments on the Current State of Regulation and Reflection on Reform

The authors provided an overview of several aspects of the legal protection of satellite remote sensing images. After referring to some national legislations and space policies for remote sensing distribution of spatial systems (US, Russian Fed., Canada, EU, India), the authors addressed the different legal protection formulas used in distribution agreements (copyright, EU Database Protection, classified information, etc.). Dr. Smith and Ms. Doldyrina questioned the applicability of the copyright formula to automatically generated data. In respect to EU Database Protection, the authors referred to several decisions of the European Court of Justice, which held that “...a right cannot be derived from the mere creation of a database”. The authors found highly questionable that under those Court decisions such protection applies to remote sensing operators, who only invest in creating a database. They proposed to create precise and clear definitions of remote sensing products, to identify proper legal protection for each of those products and to internationally harmonize the different licensing approaches. For this task, they suggested UNIDROIT as the forum to draft a model law.