St. Petersburg, Florida-based Nautical Solutions Marketing Inc. runs a site called YachtBroker.com that automatically harvests yacht sale information from other sites and provides the data to its own users.
One of the target sites, YachtWorld.com, based in Lake Forest, Illinois and owned by boats.com, objected, saying YachtBroker.com was trespassing on its site.
Nautical Solutions sued in the US District Court Middle District of Florida – and won $300,000 in compensatory and punitive damages in a jury verdict at the end of last year.
"This verdict is a big win for YachtBroker.com and for internet commerce," said G Donovan Conwell at the time, a lawyer with Florida law firm Fowler White Boggs Banker, who acted for the YachtBroker.com. "This was one of the key battles over who owns information posted on a web site," he continued, "and this jury understood that it belongs to whoever created or authored it, not to whoever happens to post it on a web site."
That decision was followed by another this month, clearing YachtBroker.com of copyright infringement.
Among the issues in the first lawsuit were two YachtBroker.com technologies. The first involved YachtBroker.com's search engine which runs on-line searches for yachts by enabling yacht brokers and their guests to look for yachts from the YachtBroker.com web site that are listed on public web sites across the internet.
The second technology involved was a YachtBroker.com service which simplifies the process of listing yachts on multiple web sites on the internet.
YachtBroker.com argued that YachtWorld.com defamed YachtBroker.com by publishing false statements that YachtBroker.com's innovations and activities were illegal. In defending its technologies, Conwell said YachtBroker.com had presented evidence that yacht listings belong to the listing yacht brokers and not to YachtWorld.com.
This month, Judge Steven Merryday also cleared YachtBroker.com of copyright infringement. According to Associated Press, he reasoned that the rights to the photos and descriptions listed on YachtWorld.com were held by individual brokers, not Boats.com itself.
In European law, database protections exist that might make for a different outcome if a similar case took place here. In 2001, in the first case of its kind, on-line recruitment firm StepStone used these laws to block a rival from deep linking to its job adverts.