The British Horseracing Board (BHB) managed a complex database containing information on horse races, jockeys, participating horses and results. William Hill, a betting operator, used those data for its own services without authorisation.
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The European Database Directive (96/9/EC) creates a sui generis right distinct from copyright: the right of a person who has made a substantial investment in obtaining, verifying or presenting the contents of a database to control extraction or reutilisation of those contents.
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The CJEU nevertheless limited the scope of that right: the sui generis right protects investment in obtaining existing data, not investment in creating the data. BHB created the data by organising the races rather than obtaining them from external sources. For that reason, protection was limited.
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The practical conclusion is this: a company that compiles and organises data from external sources may benefit from sui generis protection. But if it generates the data itself through its own activity, protection is narrower. Database protection strategy must therefore be analysed case by case.