The claimants were involved with administering professional football in Great Britain and obtaining data about matches and marketing that data. The data included goals, scorers, penalties, yellow and red cards and substitutions – all time-stamped. The data service was called Football Live. They alleged that a supplier of data to betting companies and the betting companies had infringed database rights in that data, by the data supplier (Sportradar)’s supply of the Live Scores service to the betting companies, which the betting companies made available to its users through a link. The allegation was that data within Live Scores had been copied from Football Live. As well as questions over jurisdiction, this case involved looking at whether the claimants had database rights and those had been infringed.
The High Court ruled that the claimants did have database rights. Database rights protect the substantial investment in obtaining, verifying or presenting contents of a database. European Union law had earlier established that there was no database right in the effort that goes into creating the data, such as a sporting fixture calendar or runners and riders at horseraces. However, this situation was different. Factual data collected at a live event involving events outside of the control of the person collecting and putting the database together counted as obtaining the data, rather than creating new information. The distinction was because anyone else could collate and present that data. That was different to the case where someone would otherwise have monopoly rights over the data they actually create.
The Court also decided that the data taken was large enough to count as substantial enough to amount to infringement. The position had changed after legal proceedings had started, though, as the defendants then only took the goals and their timings; the Court ruled that that would have been so small and easy to replicate at low cost as to not amount to infringement then.
Finally, the Court ruled that the betting companies were liable. They had not acted as innocent intermediaries. The links provided on their websites were directed at customers and had encouraged them to infringe the claimants’ database rights. The links were not essential to their service, but used to enhance it.