Prohibition against the use of Lovdata's databases
Supreme Court order 11 September 2019 (HR-2019-1725-A (case no. 19-22475SIV-HRET), civil case, appeal against order.
Fredrik Ljone, Håkon Wium Lie (Counsel Halvor Manshaus) v. Stiftelsen Lovdata (Counsel Jon Wessel-Aas)
Justices: Indreberg, Bull, Ringnes, Arntzen, Thyness
A website had published Supreme Court rulings taken from a DVD issued by Stiftelsen Lovdata in 2005 and from Lovdata's online databases. The Supreme Court found, like the lower instances, that the publication was an interference with Lovdata's exclusive right to the databases under section 24 of the 2018 Copyright Act. Section 14 of the same Act was not applicable, as Lovdata's databases did not concern exercise of public power. The fact that Supreme Court rulings are not copyright protected was not decisive. Nor did legal policy considerations exclude Lovdata's databases from protection under section 24. The exclusive right did not represent a violation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and Lovdata's claim was not incompatible with Article 100 of the Constitution. The website's owners were ordered to delete the published rulings and prohibited from transferring them to third parties and from making them available otherwise.