FranceCPI Sui Generis Database Right, Producer's Right to Prohibit Extraction and Reutilization
Code de la propriete intellectuelle art. L341-1 a L343-7 (Titre IV, Droits des producteurs de bases de donnees), created by loi n. 98-536 du 1er juillet 1998, transposing Directive 96/9/CE
archived copy
Read from a public archive copy, not the publisher directly. The publisher does not serve this page to automated readers, so a direct fetch was not an option here; how we access sources. Archived 2024. Publisher's page: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/section_lc/LEGITEXT000006069414/LEGISCTA000006133329/In force since .
A database right rule binding public and private bodies.
- Obligation class
- Prohibition
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- Do not extract or reutilize a qualitatively or quantitatively substantial part of a French database's content without the producer's authorization, where the producer shows a substantial investment in constituting, verifying, or presenting that content.
- Repeated or systematic extraction or reutilization of insubstantial parts can still infringe where it amounts, in its cumulative effect, to extracting or reutilizing a substantial part.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text. Also read by: Cour de cassation, première chambre civile, arrêt du 5 octobre 2022, pourvoi n° 21-16.307 (ECLI:FR:CCASS:2022:C100703), Entreparticuliers.com et LBC France (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
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Private right of actionYes
Criminal exposure note
Article L343-4: three years' imprisonment and a fine of EUR 300,000 for infringing a database producer's rights under Article L342-1, raised to seven years and EUR 750,000 where the offence is committed by an organized gang (en bande organisée); Article L343-7 doubles the penalties on a repeat offence.
Penalty structure
Article L343-4 punishes infringing the producer's rights under Article L342-1 with three years' imprisonment and a fine of EUR 300,000, raised to seven years and EUR 750,000 where the offence is committed by an organized gang. Article L343-7 doubles the penalties on a repeat offence or where the offender is or was tied to the injured party by agreement. A legal person pays a fine under Article 131-38 of the Code pénal (Article L343-6), a figure Article L343-6 does not state.
- Rule
- Fixed only
- As of
- Currency
- EUR
- Fixed cap
- 750,000
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
The criminal courts, on prosecution of the offence in Article L343-4, with the offence proved by the reports of judicial police officers or by sworn agents appointed by producers' professional bodies and approved by the minister for culture (Article L343-3); the civil courts, on application by a person with standing to act (Articles L343-1 and L343-2).
Settledness
- As of
- Case citation
- Cour de cassation, première chambre civile, arrêt du 5 octobre 2022, pourvoi n° 21-16.307 (ECLI:FR:CCASS:2022:C100703), Entreparticuliers.com et LBC France
- Open questions
- Does a site that repeats the essential fields of another producer's records and links out for the rest take a 'partie qualitativement substantielle' of the database under L. 342-1, a test the Cour de cassation applied to listings that reproduced location, surface, price, description and photograph but did not tie to a quantitative threshold?
- Does the exception in L. 342-3, point 6°, for extractions 'en vue de la fouille de textes et de données' apply to a database whose producer has reserved that use under the 'conditions prévues à l'article L. 122-5-3'?
What it makes you log
Logging duty
Articles L341-1 to L343-7 give the database producer a right to prohibit extraction and reutilization and set exceptions, term and remedies. They impose no duty to create, keep, produce or review a log or record. Article L343-1 lets a civil court order, at a rightholder's request, the description or seizure of infringing products and related documents as evidence of infringement, which is a proof procedure and not a duty to keep records.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
A database producer, understood as the person who takes the initiative and the risk of the corresponding investment, holds protection over the database's content where the constitution, verification, or presentation of that content shows a substantial financial, material, or human investment, under Article L341-1.
Article L342-1 lets the producer prohibit extraction, by permanent or temporary transfer of all or a qualitatively or quantitatively substantial part of the database's content onto another medium, and reutilization, by making that content available to the public, whatever the means. The right is independent of any copyright or other right in the database's contents or structure.
Article L342-3, point 6°, lists among the acts a rightholder cannot prohibit, once a database is made available to the public, the digital extractions, copies or reproductions of the database for text and data mining carried out under the conditions of Article L122-5-3. A contract clause contrary to that point is void.
Article L343-1 lets a rightholder prove an infringement by any means, including, on a court order obtained on application, a bailiff's detailed description or seizure (saisie-contrefacon) assisted by experts the claimant designates.
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