LawFont.com

The decision in the Australian KaZaA case (Universal Music Australia Pty Ltd v Sharman License Holdings Ltd [2005] FCA 1242) has been published.

The New York Times has also published an article on the decision, and gives a useful history of KaZaA since its launch in 2001.

It is clear that this decision will have implications beyond Australia’s shores. For some detailed comments on the decision, see Kim’s post.

I’ve already put up fairly extensive (albeit initial) comments on Kazaa below. I’m not, of course, the only one to comment on the case: here are some more links:

• Michael Geist on how the Kazaa judgment shows that Australian and Canadian copyright law are moving apart;
• The Australian (news story)
• Copyfight (reporting the story)

It’s not much – but I’ve not yet found all that much apart from news stories.

Let me know if you find more commentary that I should link to here. Also, if there is anyone out there with some comments they want to post, feel free to put them in the comments box or, if that’s just too annoying, email them to me so I can post them direct to the blog.

The Federal Court of Australia has ruled that the developers of peer-to-peer file sharing software infringes copyright in music recordings. Although the decision has not been posted yet, it has been reported on in the Australian press.

Interesting, Justice Wilcox has not ordered for the KaZaA system to be shut down, but for the technology to be modified so that instances of copyright infringement are reduced.

So today, senior Australian Federal Court judge Justice Wilcox handed down his decision in the trial of the Kazaa case. In this case, over 30 applicants – in essence, copyright owners – sued the companies and individuals involved in providing Kazaa software. They alleged all kinds of things, but the essence of the case is this question:

By providing P2P file-sharing software (and through all their other activities), did the respondents (Sharman companies, Altnet companies, and assorted individual directors) authorise the undoubted copyright infringement done by the users of the software?

The result?

• The Sharman companies did authorise infringement. They did not engage in other forms of infringement/illegality alleged by the copyright owners (including direct infringement, conspiracy, misleading conduct under the TPA or unconscionable conduct);
• The directors/head honchos in Sharman are liable for authorising infringement too;
• Some of the other parties avoided liability.

The Australian are calling it ‘The Day the Music Died’ (a bit odd, given that the market has, of course, moved on from the Kazaa system). Below are some initial thoughts.

(more…)

An article published in The Wall Street Journal Online (posted 31 August 2005) reports that a company has sued the owner of a blog for comments posted on his site by readers about the company. This case, should it proceed to trial, will raise very interesting issues that are similar to those recently raised in Australia in Universal Music v Cooper , which considered the liability of a website operator for links to infringing mp3s installed on his website by third parties. Although this case does not concern copyright law, but instead defamation and the misappropriation of trade sercrets, it considers the liability of a website operator for the actions of third parties. (more…)

So I’ve been giving some thought to this question of – apart from the exceptions specifically allowed by Article 17.4.7 of the AUSFTA, just what additional exceptions might be required? You may recall that it is only to this, limited question that the Terms of Reference of the LACA refer.

(more…)

Last week, a review was announced dealing with the drafting of Australia’s new anti-circumvention laws. For those who joined us late, basically, anti-circumvention laws are laws which seek to control how people interact with technologies used by copyright owners to control use and/or access to copyright-protected material. We have to draft new laws, to replace the current law in s 116A of the Copyright Act, because of the AUSFTA, Article 17.4.7. Article 17.4.7 is based on the US law, the DMCA.
(more…)

Here’s an interesting one: a judgment from Branson J regarding an order made by the Patent Office revoking an innovation patent.

What’s interesting is that the case looks pretty much like a pure business method patent.

(more…)

I’ve been reading the submissions made in the Attorney-General’s Inquiry into Copyright Exceptions (colloquially known as the Fair Use Inquiry, or the iPod Inquiry).

Some time ago I mused in blogprint whether the AG would make submissions available online. So far, this does not appear to have occurred. But quite a large number of submissions are available online, and I’ve been spending a bit of time trawling (and then reading). Here’s a list of what I’ve found so far (once again, let me know if I’ve missed anything):
(more…)

On 13 July, the Court of Appeal ruled in BHB v William Hill, the long-awaited UK case applying the European database right. The judgment, which is the result of an appeal from Justice Laddie’s decision in the Chancery Division of the High Court, applied the findings of the European Court of Justice regarding the interpretation of the database right. The result was that the BHB database was ruled as not falling within the scope of the law’s protection, as it was not the result of a “substantial investment” in either the obtaining, verification, or presentation of the contents of the database, as required by Article 7(1) of Directive 96/9. (more…)

The Seattle Times is reporting that Amazon has sued Cendant alleging infringement of patents. The story is thin on details, but the patents are supposed to be “e-commerce” patents, and Amazon contends they were infringed when using tools “to secure credit-card transactions”. It will be interesting to analyse the claims (and the patents) when further details emerge.

Cendant sued Amazon last year, claiming infringement of a patent for recommending choices to buyers based on previous ordering history.