What Is the EU Database Right? – Definition and How It Works
Learn what the sui generis database right protects, why it has no US equivalent, and how it affects collection.
The EU database right — often called the sui generis right — protects substantial investment in making a database, independently of copyright. It is the provision most often overlooked in US-centric analyses of scraping legality. This page is a general explanation, not legal advice.
1. What Makes It Distinctive
Copyright protects original expression. A database of pure facts — prices, timetables, listings — may contain no original expression at all, and therefore attract no copyright.
The database right fills that gap. It protects the investment in obtaining, verifying, or presenting the contents, regardless of whether the contents themselves are original.
So a factual database with no copyright can still be protected.
2. What Is Protected, and Against What
The right holder can prevent extraction and re-utilisation of a substantial part of the database contents.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Extraction | Transferring contents to another medium |
| Re-utilisation | Making contents available to the public |
| Substantial part | Assessed quantitatively or qualitatively |
Two important consequences:
Repeated small extractions can infringe. Systematic extraction of insubstantial parts, which cumulatively amounts to a substantial part, is caught. So "I only took a little each time" is specifically anticipated and does not help.
Qualitative substantiality matters. Taking a small but crucial portion can be substantial even if it is a tiny fraction of the whole.
3. The Investment Requirement
Protection requires substantial investment in obtaining, verifying, or presenting the contents.
Case law has drawn an important distinction: investment in creating the data does not count — only investment in collecting and presenting existing data. A company whose data is a by-product of its own operations may therefore have weaker protection than one that invested specifically in compiling it.
That distinction is why the right's application to, for example, sports fixture lists has been litigated and narrowed.
4. Why US-Centric Analysis Misses It
A common and consequential error. Much writing about scraping legality analyses the CFAA, contract, and copyright — all US frames — and concludes that public factual data is fair game.
In the EU, factual data may be protected by the database right even where copyright does not apply and no access control was circumvented. The analysis simply does not transfer.
For anyone collecting from EU sources, or operating in the EU, this is a distinct question that needs asking separately.
5. Duration and Renewal
The right lasts fifteen years from completion. Critically, a substantial new investment in the database starts a fresh term for the changed database.
Since a continuously updated database receives substantial new investment continuously, protection can effectively be perpetual — which is very different from a fixed copyright term running out.
6. Permitted Acts
Exceptions exist, though they are narrower than copyright's:
- A lawful user may extract insubstantial parts.
- Extraction for private purposes, for non-electronic databases.
- Illustration for teaching or scientific research, with attribution and non-commercial purpose.
- The TDM exceptions, which apply to database rights as well as copyright.
The TDM link is the practical route for analytical use, and it carries the same conditions — lawful access, and no rights reservation for the general exception.
7. What This Means for Collection
- Ask the question separately from copyright; a factual database can be protected.
- Systematic repeated extraction is specifically caught — incremental collection is not a workaround.
- Consider whether you are taking a substantial part, qualitatively as well as quantitatively.
- Rely on TDM exceptions where applicable, with their conditions met.
- Prefer licensed access for anything commercially significant built on an EU database.
- Note that duration effectively renews, so age does not imply freedom.
- Take advice where a project depends on a specific EU source.
8. Summary
The EU database right protects substantial investment in obtaining, verifying, or presenting a database's contents, independently of copyright — so a database of pure facts with no original expression can still be protected.
It prohibits extraction and re-utilisation of substantial parts, expressly including repeated small extractions that cumulate, and its term effectively renews with continued investment — which is why a US-centric analysis of CFAA, contract, and copyright can conclude "public and factual" while missing a right that still applies.