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Case Nos: IL-2023-000080 and IL-2024-000038 - [2025] EWHC 2561 (Ch)
Fecha: 10-Oct-2025
Subsistence of copyright in a database
Subsistence of copyright in a database
Before the January 1998 amendment, copyright in a database that qualified as a literary work subsisted if it was original, which imposed the usual requirement under UK copyright law: the author or authors must have expended sufficient skill or labour in its creation. The bar was low and anything other than slavish copying generally sufficed. In Ladbroke (Football) Ltd v William Hill (Football) Ltd [1964] 1 WLR 273 Lord Hodson said it was enough that the plaintiff had employed ‘more than negligible skill and labour’ in the designing of their football coupons and therefore copyright subsisted in them.
Since 1 January 1998 the law governing whether a database is an original literary work has been as set out in s.3A(2):
‘(2) For the purposes of this Part a literary work consisting of a database is original if, and only if, by reason of the selection or arrangement of the contents of the database the database constitutes the author’s own intellectual creation.’
- Heading
- Judge Hacon
- Interim appeals
- Representation
- The defendants’ skeleton arguments
- Applications during the trial
- The witnesses
- Database Right – the law
- Application of EU law
- Definition of database
- Subsistence
- Ownership
- Infringement
- Substantiality
- Extraction
- Re-utilisation
- Consultation
- Consent
- Regulation 19 of The Database Regulations
- EU law and estoppel, laches and acquiescence
- Copyright – the law
- Applicability of EU law
- Subsistence of copyright in a database
- Transitional provisions
- The consequence of amendments to a database
- Ownership of copyright
- Infringement of copyright
- Issuing copies to the public
- Communication to the public
- Making an adaptation
- Authorisation
- Use of the PAF by RMG
- The defendants’ case in summary
- RMG’s claim in summary
- Database Right
- The creation and maintenance of the GetAddress Database
- Consultation
- Whether the defendants had a licence granted by RMG
- The relevance of RMG’s End User Terms
- Whether RMG otherwise consented to use of the PAF
- Regulation 19 of the Database Regulations
- The Consumer Rights Act 2015
- Restraint of trade
- Copyright
- Subsistence and ownership
- Infringement
- Limitation
- Joint liability
- Additional damages
- IDDQD’s claim
- Database right
- The contracting party in the agreement with IDDQD
- Whether either RMG’s or IDDQD’s licence extended to Codeberry
- Whether the acts of the defendants were licensed under IDDQD’s terms
- Regulation 19 of The Database Regulations
- The Consumer Rights Act 2015
- Infringement of database right
- Joint liability
- Breach of contract
- Cause of action in respect of the RMG EUT
- Breach of the RMG EUT
- Clarity of the RMG EUT
- Restraint of trade
- Conclusions