Countrywide Assured Group, one of the country's largest estate
agents, is suing the property web site, Homemovers, for copyright
infringement.
Countrywide claims that Homemovers copied its database without
consent by taking property particulars acquired from agency
branches and "by other means" and posting them on its web site. It
is now seeking damages and a court order to prevent any future
copying from its database. Homemovers denies the allegations.
The case looks set to clarify the law protecting information
on-line. It is the first of its kind since new database regulations
were introduced at the beginning of 1998 which impose a higher test
of "originality" to establish protection. The new rules mean that
the data within the databases must have been compiled with some
degree of "intellectual creation". Further, the database itself may
now be protected from unauthorised extraction or reutilisation.
As the new regulations have yet to appear before the courts, the
Countrywide case is the most high-profile yet brought and, if it
reaches the courtroom, should clarify the elements that a database
must meet to be legally protected.
