Court of Justice Asked to Rule on Use of Contracts to Limit Database Use

Court of Justice Asked to Rule on Use of Contracts to Limit Database Use

A dispute on database use between the Irish low-cost airline Ryanair and Dutch company PR Aviation has been referred to Europe’s highest court. PR Aviation hosts a website that allows travellers to search for and compare prices of low-cost flights.

A dispute on database use between the Irish low-cost airline Ryanair and Dutch company PR Aviation has been referred to Europe’s highest court. PR Aviation hosts a website that allows travellers to search for and compare prices of low-cost flights. Ryanair objects to PR Aviation’s use of its database to make such comparisons. The dispute escalated into a legal case which is now pending before the Dutch Supreme Court.

Ryanair requires site users to accept its terms and conditions. In the conditions are included the term that its online database be used for non-commercial, personal purposes only. The Supreme Court of The Netherlands has sought for the opinion of the Court of Justice which will now determine whether Ryanair has the right to block PR Aviation and other price-comparison websites from fetching information from its online database through its terms and conditions.

The dispute touches on the 1996 Database Directive. Price-comparison websites are usually considered lawful because the websites they take their information from are databases deemed unprotected by either copyright or the "sui generis" right enshrined in the EU’s Database Directive 96/9/EC.

The Supreme Court now wants to know whether the scope of the Database Directive also covers online databases that are neither protected in copyright under Chapter II of the Directive nor protected as a sui generis right under Chapter III of the Directive and whether the freedom to use such databases can be restricted by contract.

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European Corporate Counsel is the author of this article on Eu commission. Find more information, about european union law here

European Corporate Counsel is the author of this article on Eu commission. Find more information, about Eu commission here