Search engines may, in certain cases, infringe the database right of any other websites.
That the European Court of Justice determined, in a case between comparison sites AutoTrack and Gaspedaal.nl.
Gaspedaal.nl a so-called vertical search engine results from different automotive sites through scraping aggregates, may search results of AutoTrack not take over. That the European Court of Justice determined in the appeal that was filed by AutoTrack, that since this year, the same parent company as Tweakers. The appeal court had the case submitted to the European Court and must now make judgements on the basis of the European judgment.
The ruling does not mean that general search engines such as Google no longer by the bracket, but will have consequences for search engines comparison sites index. Only under certain conditions, can indeed infringe the database right, the Court considers. If the metasearch engine, in this case Gaspedaal.nl and the database from which the search results are acquired, or AutoTrack, provide the same functionality.
In addition, should the search results from the database in real-time are acquired and the results found in the layout of the search engine are shown, in which duplicate entries are merged. Also, the list of search results according to the same criteria sorted as the original database. On collections of factual data, such as for example The telephone Directory, there is no copyright, but the database right.
According to the judges threaten owners of databases such as AutoTrack revenue to walk because visitors no longer to the database, but to the search engine. Therefore, the database would the costs that need to be made to the database to put together, are not able to repay, argues the court.
AutoTrack and Accelerator pedal have been around since 2007 in lawsuits involved. In the first lawsuit, a preliminary injunction, the court ruled that the Pedal is indeed data of AutoTrack should take over. In proceedings on the merits won AutoTrack, however, it of Accelerator. If AutoTrack the appeal wins, what now probably is, can AutoTrack ask money for access to its database or access even in the whole prohibit.
Accelerator pedal was not reachable for comment. AutoTrack reacts pleased. “This is of very great importance to the digital uitgeefindustrie”, says Sander van den Hout at De Persgroep Automotive and Technology, which also Led under the falls, in a written statement. According to Van den Hout, it is necessary that internet companies, their investments can earn.
