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"Database copyright: the story of BHB" [2007] ELECD 297; in Torremans, Paul (ed), "Copyright Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007)

Book Title: Copyright Law

Editor(s): Torremans, Paul

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845424879

Section: Chapter 5

Section Title: Database copyright: the story of BHB

Number of pages: 24

Extract:

5 Database copyright: the story of BHB
Charlotte Waelde1



1. Introduction
The British Horseracing Board (BHB), the governing authority for
horseracing in Great Britain, has been fighting hard to protect its business
model over recent years. BHB has been funded through a variety of mech-
anisms including by way of a levy imposed by the Horserace Betting Levy
Board2 on British bookmakers and horse races. In 2000 the Government
announced that it proposed to abolish the levy by 20063 (a decision later
reversed) After this date the horse racing industry would need to fund itself
by way of commercial exploitation of its assets. One strategy would be
through licensing data it collected during the course of its activities to
bodies within the industry (such as betting agencies). Exploitation of this
(and other) information was thus key to the longer-term survival of BHB.
When negotiating with third parties on the terms and conditions for the re-
use of the data, reaching agreement became problematic. BHB took to the
courts and sued William Hill, the betting company, over its unlicensed re-
use of BHB data.4 BHB was no doubt confident that its investment in
compiling the data would be protected as a result of the introduction in
1996 of the Database Directive,5 the purpose of which was to promote and
protect investment in databases.6 When William Hill lost in the High Court
it appealed to the Court of Appeal which, in turn, referred a number of
questions to ...