ECJ Opinion of Advocate General Mengozzi – Directive 96/9/EC – Legal protection of databases – Football league fixture lists – Copyright
No copyright subsisted in databases set up according to technical considerations, rules or constraints which left no room for creative freedom; but databases which involved free and creative choices resulting in a personal stamp were protected.
Mengozzi AG said: ‘It is common knowledge that, within the European Union, various standards apply as regards the level of originality generally required for copyright protection to be granted. In particular, in some EU countries which have common law traditions, the decisive criterion is traditionally the application of ‘labour, skills or effort’. For that reason, in the United Kingdom for example, databases were generally protected by copyright before the entry into force of the Directive. A database was protected by copyright if its creator had had to expend a certain effort, or employ a certain skill, in order to create it. On the other hand, in countries of the continental tradition, for a work to be protected by copyright it must generally possess a creative element, or in some way express its creator’s personality, even though any assessment as to the quality or the ‘artistic’ nature of the work is always excluded.
Now, on this point there is no doubt that, as regards copyright protection, the Directive espouses a concept of originality which requires more than the mere ‘mechanical’ effort needed to collect the data and enter them in the database. To be protected by the copyright, a database must-as art.3 of the Directive explicitly states-be the ‘intellectual creation’ of the person who has set it up. That expression leaves no room for doubt, and echoes a formula which is typical of the continental copyright tradition.’
Mengozzi AG
[2011] EUECJ C-604/10, C-604/10
Bailii
Directive 96/9/EC
European
Cited by:
Opinion – Football Dataco And Others v Yahoo UK Ltd etc ECJ 1-Mar-2012
ECJ Directive 96/9/EC – Legal protection of databases – Copyright – Football league fixture lists . .
Cited – SAS Institute Inc v World Programming Ltd CA 21-Nov-2013
The court was asked as to the extent to which the developer of a computer program may lawfully replicate the functions of an existing computer program; and the materials that he may lawfully use for that purpose. SAS had produced a computer software . .
Cited – HRH The Duchess of Sussex v Associated Newspapers Ltd ChD 11-Feb-2021
Defence had no prospect of success – Struck Out
The claimant complained that the defendant newspaper had published contents from a letter she had sent to her father. The court now considered her claims in breach of privacy and copyright, and her request for summary judgment.
Held: Warby J . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
European, Intellectual Property
Leading Case
Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.451781