Brussels, 15/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - Unless a database is protected either by copyright or other autonomous right, the company it belongs to can lay down conditions for its use, the Court of Justice of the EU ruled on Thursday 15 January, in a case (C-30/14) between an Internet price comparison site and the airline Ryanair.
Like many websites, PR Aviation allows customers to make easy comparisons between the prices of flights offered by different airlines. This comparison site collects data on Ryanair using a data collection coupled to the public Internet site of Ryanair. Its general conditions of use, however, prevent other sites from selling Ryanair flights or extracting data from it for commercial purposes. Ryanair took PR Aviation to court.
The Dutch Court of Appeal turned to the European courts to find out whether, in light of the directive on the protection of databases (96/9/EC), the use of public databases - those which are online and protected neither by copyright nor autonomous rights - can be contractually limited, specifically through general terms and conditions.
Use of this kind can be limited, the Court of Justice of the EU ruled, as long as the applicable national law is complied with. This is explained by the fact that the directive in question applies only to online databases protected by copyright or other autonomous right, in other words a right attached to the databases, the obtaining, verification or presentation of the content of which represents a substantial investment from a qualitative or quantitative point of view. (JK)