European UnionDatabase Directive, Sui Generis Right and Lawful-User Exceptions
In force since .
A database right rule binding public and private bodies.
- Criminal exposure
- No
- Private right of action
- Yes
- Obligation class
- Prohibition
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- Do not extract or re-utilize the whole or a substantial part, evaluated qualitatively or quantitatively, of a database's contents without the maker's authorization, where the maker shows a substantial investment in obtaining, verifying, or presenting that content and is a national or habitual resident of a Member State, or a company or firm formed under a Member State's law with its registered office, central administration or principal place of business in the Community (Art. 11(1) and (2)). Under Art. 43 of Regulation (EU) 2023/2854 the right does not apply to data obtained from or generated by a connected product or related service within that Regulation's scope.
- Do not repeatedly and systematically extract or re-utilize insubstantial parts of a database's contents where doing so conflicts with the database's normal exploitation or unreasonably prejudices the maker's legitimate interests, even where no single extraction takes a substantial part.
- Where lawfully accessing a database the maker has made available to the public, extracting or re-utilizing insubstantial parts for any purpose does not need the maker's authorization, but stop short of conflicting with the database's normal exploitation or unreasonably prejudicing the maker's interests; where you are authorized to extract or re-utilize only part of the database, this applies only to that part (Art. 8(1)).
- Treat the sui generis right as expiring fifteen years from 1 January of the year following the database's completion or, where the database was made available to the public before that period expired, fifteen years from 1 January of the year following the date it was first made available to the public (Art. 10(1) and (2)), and expect a substantial new investment in its contents to start a new term for the resulting database (Art. 10(3)).
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text. Also read by: Case C-202/12 Innoweb BV v Wegener ICT Media BV and Wegener Mediaventions BV, judgment of (Fifth Chamber) (recorded ).
In the frameworks
- NIST AI RMF
- MAP 4.1Approaches for mapping AI technology and legal risks of its components – including the use of third-party data or software – are in place, followed, and documented, as are risks of infringement of a third party’s intellectual property or other rights.
Our reading of where this law's duties sit in each framework. It never says that running a control meets the law. How we read a framework against the law
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
Each Member State, through the remedies its own law provides under Article 12, which requires appropriate remedies for infringement of the sui generis right; the Directive names no enforcement authority of its own and leaves the form of those remedies to the Member State.
Settledness
- As of
- Case link
- https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:62012CJ0202
- Case citation
- Case C-202/12 Innoweb BV v Wegener ICT Media BV and Wegener Mediaventions BV, judgment of (Fifth Chamber)
- Open questions
- At what volume or frequency does repeated and systematic extraction of insubstantial parts of a database 'conflict with a normal exploitation' of it or 'unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the maker' under Article 7(5)?
- Is a person who reads a database that is freely available online, without a licence, a 'lawful user' under Article 8(1), so that a contract term against extracting insubstantial parts is void under Article 15?
What it makes you log
Logging duty
Articles 7 to 10 give the maker of a database the right to prevent extraction and re-utilization, set the lawful-user rules and exceptions, and fix the term of protection. They impose no duty to create, keep, produce or review a log or record. Article 11, outside the provisions covered, says which makers are protected.
- Kind
- None
- As of
Also on the record
EEA status
- Annex
- XVII
- Status
- Incorporated
- Force date
- Joint committee decision number
- 59/1996
- Source link
- https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:21997D0123(08)
- Decision date
What this law does
Article 7(1) gives the maker of a database that shows a substantial investment, evaluated qualitatively or quantitatively, in obtaining, verifying or presenting its contents a sui generis right to prevent extraction or re-utilization of the whole or a substantial part of that content.
Article 7(2) defines extraction as the permanent or temporary transfer of all or a substantial part of the contents to another medium by any means or in any form, and re-utilization as any form of making that content available to the public by distribution or another means.
Article 7(5) separately bars the repeated and systematic extraction or re-utilization of insubstantial parts where doing so conflicts with the database's normal exploitation or unreasonably prejudices the maker's legitimate interests, so a scraper cannot evade the substantial-part threshold by taking small pieces on a recurring basis.
Article 8 lets a lawful user of a database made available to the public extract or re-utilize insubstantial parts for any purpose without the maker's authorization (only of the part the user is authorized to use, where the authorization covers only part of the database), but bars any act conflicting with the database's normal exploitation or unreasonably prejudicing the maker's legitimate interests, or causing prejudice to a copyright or related right in the database's contents; Article 15 makes a contractual provision contrary to Article 8 void.
Article 9 lets a Member State permit a lawful user of a database made available to the public to extract a substantial part of its contents without the maker's authorization for private purposes from a non-electronic database or for illustration in teaching or scientific research with the source indicated and to a non-commercial extent, and to extract or re-utilize a substantial part for public security or an administrative or judicial procedure.
Article 24(1)(b) of Directive (EU) 2019/790 replaced point (b) of Article 9 so that the teaching and scientific-research exception is without prejudice to the exceptions and limitations in that Directive.
Article 10 makes the right expire fifteen years from the first of January of the year following the database's completion or, where the database is made available to the public before that period expires, fifteen years from the first of January of the year following the date it was first made available to the public; a substantial new investment in the database's contents, evaluated qualitatively or quantitatively, gives the resulting database its own fresh fifteen-year term.
Article 43 of Regulation (EU) 2023/2854 provides that the sui generis right does not apply when data is obtained from or generated by a connected product or related service within that Regulation's scope. A Member State's own transposition of this Directive, such as France's Code de la propriete intellectuelle Articles L341-1 to L343-7, is that state's own law.
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