Ryanair v PR Aviation BV, European Court of Justice
Websites can stop price comparison websites from scraping their data if their website data is not protected by copyright or database right and national law permits this restriction. The European Court of Justice has made this ruling following a referral from the Dutch courts.
The case involved PR Aviation’s provision of a service in which it compared various sites, including Ryanair. Ryanair objected, relying on its website terms of use, which prohibited scraping. The EU database right protects the investment in time, money and skill in developing a database, but the right does not apply to data which has been created by that person. In this case, PR Aviation sought to argue that even if the website was not protected by database right, it would be able to have the protection of rights provided for users under the Database Directive by analogy.
However, the EU’s highest court did not agree with PR Aviation’s argument. If data was not protected by database right, this was then a matter for the host website’s terms and conditions. As to whether or not those terms and conditions can stop scraping is a matter for national law.
Paul Gershlick, a Partner at Matthew Arnold & Baldwin LLP, comments: “This ruling is not a surprise. However, what it does mean is that price comparison sites have to be really careful to comply with website terms of use. The question has not yet been answered in English law as to whether it is permitted to contain such a restriction. My expectation would be that English law would permit such a restriction. What users may question is why a website might be so anxious to avoid price comparisons, and so commercially it might be bad news to block comparisons; this might also close off some of the market if people turn to the price comparison site.”
