Misappropriations by search engines : The legal protection of non-creative databases in Europe and the relevance of restraints to prevent access to on-line databases

Abstract

Several basic concepts related to the activities of search engines are well known by the technicians and those who work in the Internet sphere or in the computer business. Terms such as browsing, linking and meta tags are elemental concepts in the computer science. Lawyers around the world know the rules of the copyright issues and their application under the traditional ways of property. Nevertheless, no twenty century lawyer can be indifferent in front of the Internet legal challenges.

As search engines have grown as an industry, especially as tools enabling users to locate material on the Internet, a number of lawsuits and legal issues have arisen in relation to them.

The question to be examined in this thesis is whether and how far the legal protection afforded to non-creative material can be invoked in order to prevent information gathering and displaying by search engines on the Internet. A related question is what the relevance of restraints to prevent access to non-creative material will be in such cases.