Keeping Secrets in Times of Weak Law

December 12, 2011

By Tiffany Wong, Oscar O’Bryan and Jake Goldenfein

Keeping anything secret seems like a challenge in today’s radically altered media landscape. Digitisation has abolished the cost of reproduction and networked environments expose information to actors with the capacity to leak, steal or vandalise for whatever purpose motivating them. Law hardly seems to have a role in a space where technological know-how trumps not only the regulation of secrets but also the digital architectures that protect them. But does that mean that law should retreat from regulating information, or rather, is it a time for redoubled analysis of law’s relationship to information and perhaps an open mind when looking at options for reform. Rather than harsher penalties and more vigorous enforcement, do we need more transformative approaches for dealing with the reality of our age of communicative abundance?

This year’s CMCL conference, ‘Keeping Secrets in Times of Weak Law’ answers the call for a critique of law’s role in keeping secrets and the institutions that determine when secrets should remain so.

Jake Goldenfein presented on the different forms of WikiLeaks and how its latest iteration of publishing uncensored and unredacted documents without institutional (mainstream media) oversight may be the only mode of transgression that can fulfil its ideological mission. Dan Hunter, Julian Thomas and Alana Maurushat constituted the Cybersecurity Panel, discussing the relationship between states, secrets and law. The session was chaired by David Lindsey. Philip Williams, David Brennan and Susan McMaster made up the Trade and Commercial Secrecy Panel, chaired by Beth Webster, discussing the economic arguments in the trade off between incentives to produce and incentives to enjoy information. And the Privacy Panel, chaired by Jason Bosland, included Megan Richardson, Michael Rivette, Michael Gawenda and the Honourable Michael Kirby, who discussed Lenah Game Meats – 10 years on, and the possibility of a statutory cause of action for privacy in Australia.

Cybersecurity

Dan Hunter, director of the Institute for Information Law and Policy at New York Law School, gave the Cybersecurity keynote, asking some pertinent questions about secrecy and security in the age of the Internet. In particular, why WikiLeaks was such a lightening rod for criticism and whether ‘control’ is the correct paradigm to inform the policies behind regulating secrecy.

The debate over WikiLeaks set the context for Hunter’s presentation. In asking why WikiLeaks, especially its release of unredacted cables was so derided by the institutions related to the rule of law (journalists, lawyers etc) Hunter critiqued those institutions for being unable to see the reality of today’s communications infrastructure and practices. Instead, Hunter claimed, those institutions rely on an ethic of control that propelled the ratcheting up of copyright laws since the Internet became publicly available 20 years ago, as well as informed the news media’s derision of WikiLeaks publishing without their oversight.

Hunter suggested that WikiLeaks may be a precursor for a change in policy regarding government secrecy and disclosure and asked what modern day information policies and practices should look like given the Internet and technologies like WikiLeaks. Regarding copyright, Hunter claimed control was not what creators sought and regarding secrets, Hunter alluded to substantial evidence suggesting administrators over-protect information in ways that are profoundly undemocratic. Now that we live with the idea of radical transparency as something we cannot really do anything about, Hunter claims we have to craft a policy that gives up on our misguided concerns about control despite the new dangers that may provoke.

Respondent, Julian Thomas, director of The Swinburne Institute for Social Research, discussed the extent to which the Internet has decentralised, diffused or democratised secrecy– and where WikiLeaks fits into this new equilibrium. Thomas claimed that the Internet has made states both less and more able to control information, where networks of freedom and networks of control lay alongside each other. WikiLeaks operates in this new networked society, claims Thomas, according to the model described by William Dutton as the 5th estate emerging from the network of networks. While sharing some features of the traditional press, the 4th estate, Thomas claimed this 5th estate is more than simply a supplemental ‘new’ media but operates in a space, where institutional and amateur expression are side by side, as are networks of freedom and networks of control exist within what Manuel Castells describes as the space of flows (not a space of places) where people find knowledge outside of institutional sources.

Alana Maurashat, director of UNSWS’s Cyberlaw and Policy Centre, discussed the regulation of hacking worldwide, noting her consultancy to the Canadian government to assist in crafting a reasonable policy in the field of ethical hacking. She saw WikiLeaks’ legacy as going beyond subsequent movements like Anonymous and Occupy, but rather depicted WikiLeaks as the leader, or image, of a whole system of e-government and e-revolutions, often coordinated by groups that have been considerably empowered by today’s technological conditions.

Trade and Commercial Secrecy

Beth Webster opened the panel by contextualising the importance of trade secrecy to Australian innovators, referring to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ most recent innovation survey. This survey highlighted that 40 per cent of Australian businesses were innovation-active during the 12-month reference period and the most popular method of intellectual property (‘IP’) protection by these businesses was a secrecy or confidentiality agreement.

Keynote, Philip Williams (Chairman of Frontier Economics) offered an economist’s perspective on trade secrecy by posing the key economic problem arising from the protection of trade secrets: the trade-off between two incentives — the optimal incentives to produce information and the optimal incentives to enjoy information.  Economics has been able to articulate this problem, but has struggled to offer guidance for its resolution.

To illustrate this problem, Williams presented a simple economic model: a person spends a year of pain (‘Period 1’) to enjoy a year of gain (‘Period 2’).  The person may justify the pain by producing an asset, such as information, at the end of Period 1.  Enjoyment of that information in Period 2 constitutes the gain.  The person will only bear the pain in Period 1 if they believe that they will likely enjoy the information in Period 2.  Thus the person will likely seek legal or extra-legal protection of the information from appropriation.

Williams noted, however, that the trade secrecy context raised three complications to this model.  First, the creation of an asset does not draw a clear distinction between the two periods of activity — investment and enjoyment — since the asset will likely grow in value during Period 1.  Secondly, the asset may generate benefits for its creator through trade, whether or not the creation process has completed.  Thirdly, if the asset is information (a classic public good) difficulties arise with respect to trade.  In particular, a purchaser must know the information to determine its value — a problem also known as Arrow’s fundamental paradox of information.

Williams applied this model to the facts of Maggbury v Hafele (2001) 210 CLR 181 (‘Maggbury’), a High Court case in which the law dealt with the trade-off between the incentives to produce and enjoy an asset. Williams noted the economic inefficiency of restraining the use of information after that information had entered the public domain.  He suggested that restitutionary damages would have been a more efficient remedy by allowing Maggbury to recover the benefit of its investment and by allowing the use of publicly available information.  The key challenge in calculating the quantum, however, would be to determine the duration of Hafele’s head start, which Hafele gained by first access to the information.

 

The first commentator, David Brennan, engaged in a fuller discussion of remedies for breach of confidence. He highlighted the remedial uncertainties arising from the equitable jurisdiction of breach of confidence — remedies were at the court’s discretion, and equity provided weak guidance on the assessment of quantum.

In noting these problems with equitable remedies, Brennan argued injunctive relief would serve little purpose, given the defendant’s destruction of confidentiality; an account of profits could involve accounting problems since the significant intermingling of the defendant’s resources with the information; and equitable compensation, calculated on a counterfactual basis, might be dismissed by courts as too imprecise a measure of damages.

Brennan concluded by making suggestions for law reform.  To strengthen legal protection of confidential information and to deter the wrongful disclosure of such information, he submitted that an all-proceeds remedy would be preferable to injunctive relief where there was a breach of confidence which was: (a) in bad faith; (b) the wrongdoer benefited from the breach in an ascertainable and proximate manner; (c) the secrecy of the information has been destroyed by the breach; and (d) there was no market-based objective measure of harm.  Depending on the nature of the party’s breach and benefit, the appropriate remedy should be a constructive trust, and/or an account of profits without allowance for the wrongdoer’s contributions.

The second commentator, Susan McMaster (Senior Legal Counsel with CSIRO), provided the practical perspective of IP creators, including those who received and commercialised confidential information.  Drawing from her experience with CSIRO, McMaster acknowledged both the importance of trade secrecy in the private sector and the effectiveness of sharing knowledge to achieve impact from research results.

Secrecy, McMaster claimed, is crucial to the patent application process since patent registration hinges on the first-to-file system and the development of patentable subject matter through research and experimentation takes a long time. Further, secrecy is required for the commercialisation of public scientific research as investors are incentivised by the exclusive rights created by patent registration.

McMaster raised three key issues concerning the management of confidentiality agreements.  First, it may be unclear whether certain information is confidential.  Secondly, non-disclosure agreements must be drafted and used to enforce confidentiality, rather than to constitute a mere formality before commercial engagement.  Thirdly, a research organisation and its employees must refrain from receiving confidential information from third parties or entering into third-party confidentiality agreements if doing so would place the organisation at a commercial disadvantage.

 

Privacy

 

The final panel of the day, chaired by the CMCL’s Jason Bosland, considered the past, present and future of privacy protection under Australian law. The four speakers brought a wealth of academic, professional, industry and personal experience to panel, making for a discussion that was informative, candid and enjoyable.

The first speaker, Professor Megan Richardson framed the panel discussion around the future direction of privacy law in Australia – does Australia need a statutory cause of action for invasion of privacy, or should the common law protecting privacy interests (breach of confidence, defamation) be left to develop on its own? She noted the ‘careful silence’ of the federal government on the issue, only recently broken by the publication in September 2011 of an issues paper recommending the introduction of a statutory cause of action – a reaction, perhaps, to the resurgence of interest in the ever-expanding News of the World phone-hacking scandal.

Richardson dealt at length with the judicial reasoning in ABC v Lenah Game Meats as to whether the common law alone can protect (individual) privacy interests sufficiently, referring to Gleeson CJ’s discussion and approval of Hellewell v Chief Constable of Derbyshire as an example of the successful utilisation of the doctrine of breach of confidence to protect privacy. On the other hand however, Richardson noted the imperfections of the common law process, requiring plaintiffs to endure the ‘agonising’ process of adversarial litigation to have their interests recognised. She cited the Campbell, Mosley and Giller cases as pertinent examples of this. Richardson suggested that a statutory cause of action could make a positive difference if it were well-framed.

The second speaker was Michael Rivette, barrister at Chancery Chambers, who along with having successfully argued the privacy issues in the Giller v Procopets appeal, also maintains numerous professional and commercial interests in the media and communications sector. Rivette spoke of the continuing influence of the ABC v Lenah Game Meats case upon the development of the law of privacy, both in Australia and overseas. He suggested that the Victorian authority of Giller actually afforded greater privacy protection through breach of confidence than exists under the common law in both the UK and New Zealand. While he acknowledged the potential benefit of a statutory cause of action, Rivette highlighted the drawn-out nature of the law reform process, and said that in the mean time, ‘we have to do what we can with what we have’.

The third speaker was Michael Gawenda, whose perspective on the issues was coloured by his extensive experience as a career journalist and author. Gawenda noted that ‘journalists are in the business of invading people’s privacy’ on the basis of public interest, however he was clear that this end did not always justify the means (this can be contrasted with recent remarks by former News of the World journalist Paul McMullen). In particular he was critical of the idea that the apparent consent of a journalist’s subject to an invasion of privacy might legitimise or validate that invasion. In concluding, Gawenda was sceptical about the ability of the legal system to deal comprehensively with privacy issues, suggesting that perhaps the regulation (formal and informal) and culture of the media industries needed to change as well.

The final speaker was the Honourable Michael Kirby AC CMG. Kirby suggested that a consideration of privacy law should begin with the question: ‘Why do we want privacy?’ – framing the answer in terms of the ability to have control over our personal lives, arguing that personal privacy is important to our ‘fullness’ and ‘flourishing’ as human beings. In this sense, Kirby was of the European perspective that personal privacy is a human right which should be protected by the law. After highlighting the imperfections of the various options canvassed in the recent issues paper – do nothing, expand the role of the Press Council, rely upon the courts to develop the common law, et cetera – he came to the conclusion that the best way forward for privacy protection in Australia is the creation of a statutory cause of action for invasion of privacy.

The session highlighted the numerous stake-holders in the ongoing development of privacy law – the media, the legal profession, celebrities, ‘normal’ people – each with their own perspectives, concerns, and objectives. The task for the Australian law is to consider and balance all of these things in continuing to move towards a more coherent law of privacy.

Tiffany Wong is an LLB/BMus candidate at the University of Melbourne.

Oscar O’Bryan is holds an LLB from the Melbourne Law School.

Jake Goldenfein is a PhD candidate at the Melbourne Law School.

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The UK Government on its Digital Opportunity

August 26, 2011

By Sarah Lux 

Earlier this year, the Fortnightly Review reported on the Hargreaves Review and its recommendations for the reform of UK intellectual property law. The UK Government has now released its official response, announcing that it accepts all of the Review’s recommendations and aims to implement measures by the end of this Parliament to ‘realise the Review’s vision and deliver real value to the UK economy, and to the creators and users of Intellectual Property’.

Importance of Evidence

The Review emphasised the need for IP policy to be grounded in clear economic evidence of the impact of regulatory mechanisms on competition and innovation. Professor Hargreaves identified two main areas of concern: the lack of high-quality evidence to support some intellectual property measures and an overabundance of lobbying by private interest groups.

The Response begins with a set of promises geared towards ensuring that UK IP policy is informed by better evidence. In relation to the first concern, the Response notes that the Government has ‘begun an ambitious programme of economic research with partners’, referring readers to an outline of its proposed research. The outline includes plans to:

  • assess possible economic effects of congestion in the trade mark register;
  • study the economic value of public domain works;
  • develop an approach for measuring IP enforcement costs against the effects on rights owners, consumers and the wider economy;
  • link all IP rights to business performance measures;
  • assess the economic cost of invalid patents;
  • assess the volume of orphan works and their impact on creators and users; and
  • develop a methodology for research into economic and social impacts of copyright exceptions.

In relation to the second concern, the Response states that the Government will give limited weight in IP policy-making to evidence that is insufficiently open and transparent, and will make it clear when it is doing so.

However, the Response also states that perfect evidence is an ideal, and that in making IP policy it is sometimes necessary to ‘guess and get on with it’. Accordingly, while the Government will aim to be guided by ‘emerging evidence’, it will continue to prioritise ‘rapid progress’ towards an improved IP system.

Digital Copyright Exchange

The response to Professor Hargreaves’ proposed Digital Copyright Exchange (DCE) is that a DCE ‘has the potential to offer a more efficient marketplace for owners and purchasers of rights’ and that it could contribute up to £2.2 billion per year to the UK economy by 2020. The Government will therefore commission a ‘champion’ of the DCE to undertake preliminary steps towards its creation.  The DCE champion will report back on progress at the end of 2011.

However, the Response implies that the Government will give less weight to the DCE than was envisaged by Professor Hargreaves. Hargreaves recommended that a work which cannot be found after a diligent search of the DCE should be regarded as an orphan work and automatically licensed for use. The Government, on the other hand, regards DCE searches as only ‘a valuable first step’ in searching for the owner of a work, and notes the need for other diligent searches before a work can properly be treated as an orphan. The Government takes the view that compulsory participation in the DCE would be contrary to the Berne Convention.

Orphan Works

The Government intends to make proposals at the end of the year for an orphan works scheme incorporating the safeguards discussed above.

Copyright Exceptions

The Response agrees that greater exceptions to copyright are required in theUK. The Government intends to make proposals at the end of the year for ‘a substantial opening up of theUK’s copyright exceptions regime’.  This will include proposals for:

  • a limited private copying exception;
  • a widened non-commercial research exception (which should cover text and data-mining to the extent permissible under EU law);
  • a widened library archiving exception; and
  • a new exception for parody.

The Response adds that there is a need for wider exceptions at the EU level, since theUK’s scope for action on exceptions is limited. The Government will therefore ‘aim to secure further flexibilities’ at EU level.

Enforcement

Among other measures to improve enforcement, the Government intends to introduce a small claims track in the Patents County Court for cases with £5,000 or less at issue, for use in copyright, design and possibly trade mark cases, to increase access to enforcement by small and medium enterprises.

Patents, Designs and Trade Marks

These areas of intellectual property law received little focus in the Review, which dealt mainly with theUKcopyright regime. However, the Review did make some recommendations on patents and designs.

On patents, the Government undertakes to:

  • resist extensions of patents into sectors which are currently excluded, in the absence of clear evidence that this is necessary;
  • provide for work-sharing with other patent offices in order to address backlogs; and
  • investigate the scale and prevalence of issues with patent thickets as well as potential solutions.

On designs, the Response notes that the IPO has commissioned research on the relative levels of design registration in theUKcompared toFranceandGermanyand on whether theUK’s lower level of registration has impacts on the competitiveness of theUK. It also noted that designs might be included in the DCE or its equivalent.

International Policy and Crime Strategy

Alongside the Response, the Government has released The UK’s International Strategy for Intellectual Property, which outlines the role the UK envisages for itself in working towards an efficient, well-functioning international IP system, and The UK IP Crime Strategy 2011, which discusses the ways in which the UK will continue to enforce IP law domestically.

Conclusion

The Government’s response to the Hargreaves Review was one of resounding acceptance, at least at the level of principle. Despite the long road towards implementation that no doubt lies ahead of these Recommendations, the Government’s positive response increases the likelihood that the principles underpinning the Review, and its key findings, will be considered closely in the upcoming review of Australian copyright.

Sarah Lux is an intellectual property lawyer at Allens Arthur Robinson and an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of New South Wales.

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A reply to the sentiment that copyright infringement not resulting in lost sales is benign

June 16, 2011

By Assoc. Prof. David Brennan

A view is held (in both expert and non-expert circles) that unless an infringement of copyright causes proven lost sales, that infringement should not be actionable. Under the logic of this view, to award damages for infringements that do not cause proven lost sales would be vindicating intellectual property rights without triggering incentive effects.

In relation to the damages award in the now famous Larrikin v EMI litigation (comprising a notional usage price of 5% of APRA׀AMCOS royalties paid to the infringers) two of our economists Beth Webster and Paul Jensen have supplied this critique of the law – emphasis in the original:

The sales of ‘Kookaburra’ were not affected in any way shape or form by the success of ‘Down Under’.  Quite simply, Larrikin should not be due any damages at all.

It is worthwhile to think more about (in law and economics) the creation of property rights – including those rights’ remedial scope – for copyright subject matter. A fine vehicle to do this is infringing file-sharing.

Research undertaken at the University of Ballarat in April 2010 reveals something of the global extent of infringing file-sharing. The University’s Internet Commerce Security Laboratory (ICSL) – which is funded by the State Government of Victoria, IBM, Westpac, the Australian Federal Police and the University – was commissioned by Village Roadshow to measure the volume and nature of BitTorrent file-sharing global traffic. It estimated that 97.9% of files made available encoding non-pornographic content were clearly not authorised by the copyright owner. Under the BitTorrent system the term ‘seeders’ refers to people who have completed their download and then make the file available for others to download. That is to say, a seeder is a person who is making that content available online to the public. The ICSL produced a list of what was estimated to be the top 100 seeded files as at April 2010. The top 10 in that list were:

1. The Incredible Hulk[2008]DvDrip-aXXo97065494792.4447: 1,112,628

2. Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull[2008]-aXXo: 1,029,695

3. College[2008]DvDrip-aXXo339166021846.017: 509,576

4. Sherlock Holmes (2009) DVDSCR XviD-MAX: 479,655

5. Avatar (2009) PROPER TS XviD-MAX889790305026.795: 332,665

6. Meet Dave[2008]DvDrip-aXXo: 311,894

7. Lady GaGa – The Fame Monster 2CDRip 2009 [Cov+2CD][Bubanee]: 308,117

8. The Andromeda Strain[2008]DvDrip-aXXo: 284,221

9. Shutter Island (2010) R5 DVDRip XviD-MAX851029283088.936: 282,628

10. 2012 (2009) R5 DVDRip XviD-MAX883775626338.402: 277,043

With this list it should be pointed out that a title like Avatar reappeared twice again in the top 100 list under different file names – i.e. Avatar 2009 DVDScr H264 AAC-SecretMyth (Kingdom-Release) 94,781 seeders and Avatar TS XviD-IMAGiNE(No Rars) 82,977 seeders.

It is commonly considered that unless an infringing file-sharer, but for infringing, would have paid for the relevant content then there is no harm to the copyright owner arising from the infringement. Consider these three published readers’ comments to Asher Moses’s essay-style article ‘Piracy – are we being conned?’ (Fairfax Media, 22 March 2011)

  • Why would they assume that an unpaid download is a lost sale? Kale – Sydney
  • The figures are obviously predicated on the presumption that each illegal download would convert into a legitimate purchase, which is a palpably fatuous assumption to make. The ghost of common sense - My bedroom
  • So are they counting every movie i have downlaoded then as lost revenue? cos i have a surpirse for you, you never were gong to get the money in the first place! [sic] Danny – Melbourne

The commonality of this sentiment is so pervasive that a survey-based analysis of direct loss to the film industry conducted in Australia by IPSOS Media CT and Oxford Economics for the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) made explicit allowance for it. Deducted from ranks of loss-causing Australian infringers were those who would never have paid to watch the film. That is someone like Danny above. Danny might have unlawfully downloaded Avatar using BitTorrent, but never would have paid to obtain a copy. The AFACT-commissioned survey estimated that 23% of Australian infringers were in Danny’s boat, and so a 23% deduction was made in arriving at the final figure of $575m direct loss to the film industry for the 12 months Nov 2009-Sept 2010.

Is it correct, as our economists Beth and Paul say, that infringement not causing proven lost sales should yield zero damages? Or is it correct, as the Fairfax readers imply, that an infringing download not substituting for an actual purchase should be removed in the calculation of owner harm? And is it therefore correct to make that 23% deduction?  Or, to put it another way, is infringement not resulting in a proven material loss benign?

In economic analysis of copyright law as it applies to (say) the film industry, copyright is justifiable to the extent that it provides an effective promise to film producers and creators that if investment and risk is undertaken to make a film, some of the value that film generates is capable of market appropriation through the conferral of property rights. Avatar is a good case-in-point.  Would it have been created without the promise of copyright? It is difficult to imagine this type of content being produced through non-market means such as philanthropy or public funding. Market demand stimulates such content’s creation. In copyright, property rights in creative expression are deployed as an instrumental device to permit that market demand to induce productive endeavour. This is the incentive effect of intellectual property. It does not mean that those property rights per se generate economic value – the film could be an unmitigated box-office flop. Rather, the rights simply provide a way for a film copyright owner to capture some of the market demand for its film.

Given that copyright in economic theory is a promise of appropriability what, in private law, does that promise mean by taking the form of a property right?  Property as an owner’s right to exclude forges a special norm which governs relations between the owner of the property and users of the property. When relations are governed by a property norm violation by a user means that the owner receives less than the owner deserves, and that the user obtains more than the user deserves. Restitution scholarship regards this as an ‘expense’ to the owner mirroring a ‘gain’ to the user. The expense and the gain are de jure rather than de facto concepts. This restitutionary idea has been applied in intellectual property cases since as long ago as the 1867 patents decision of Penn v Jack where Page Wood VC assessed damages by asking: ‘What would have been the condition of the Plaintiff if the Defendants had acted properly, instead of acting improperly. That condition, if it can be ascertained, will, I apprehend, be the proper measure.’ Here, ‘acted properly’ meant to have paid a reasonable usage price for the use of the intellectual property.

Subsequent UK, US and Australian authority has assessed the lower-end quantum of monetary relief in copyright and patent cases to be the reasonable price for the use of the IP regardless of whether the particular defendant user would have agreed to pay. Indeed this approach is seen in the Larrikin v EMI case itself, where evidence was before the court that a lead member of Men at Work would have resisted paying anything for use of the Kookaburra copyright. But why should at least usage price damages be paid in the Larrikin v EMI litigation, and indeed by people such as Danny in the unlikely event that they are sued for downloading Avatar? For instrumental reasons society has promised the conferral of copyright property. That promise is one of appropriability which entails a particular norm governing relations between owners and users. Failure to at least award usage price damages (or recognise a legal entitlement to such a usage price) represents breach of that promise. It does so by creating the perverse situation of rewarding users who infringe rather than act lawfully. Moreover, why should anyone pay for the enjoyment of Avatar if the law accepts as benign the consumption of ‘you never were gong to get the money in the first place’ Danny?

Stripped away, the point made by the above economists and the Fairfax readers seems to resolve to a more fundamental matter of property delineation. The infringements of the 23% of users identified in the AFACT-commissioned survey should be removed from the copyright promise. That is, removed from the definition of property rights in copyright. Arguably, it presents us with this stunning new conception: copyright is the legal entitlement to exclude the whole world from the exercise of certain defined rights – except those people who would never have paid for the exercise of those rights.

David Brennan is an Associate Professor at the Melbourne Law School

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Fordham IP Conference 2011, New York City

June 2, 2011

By Vicki Huang

The Fordham IP conference – “Learn, Debate, Have Fun” – was held on 28 – 29th April 2011 in New York City.  The conference attracted many academics, practitioners, government officials, and members of the judiciary from Europe, the USA and of course Australasia.  This combination triggered a lot of informed debate and it was refreshing to hear input from all sides of contentious issues including views from the bench.

Many of the sessions have been covered by our friends at IPKAT here, here, here, here, here and here.  In addition to those sessions, the Fortnightly Review was lucky to attend several specific sessions on copyright and trade mark law and highlights are outlined below.

In a session on “US Copyright Developments”, Thomas Kjellberg updated the audience on copyright cases against “suburban” downloaders where damages peaked at over $1 million dollars. These cases such as Capital Records v Thomas Rassett have sparked a debate as to whether such awards violate due process.  Kjellberg also discussed the case of Penguin v American Buddha. In that case, American Buddha (a religious not-for-profit), posted ebooks on its website. One of the issues for the court was locating the site of the injury. Was it in New York (home of the plaintiff), or Arizona (the site of the uploader) or Texas (the site of the server)?  The court held that because the location of the infringer may be remote, it would not be fair to use the infringer’s location as the locus of harm. Therefore, even though there was no downloading evidence in New York, that was not to say there was “no injury” in New York.  Rather the test should assess the intent of the infringer.

In a session on “EU and US Initial Interest Confusion in Trade Mark Law”, The Hon. Mr Justice Arnold discussed the development of the doctrine and its actionability under Article 9(1)(b).  He went on to discuss several cases including the recent case of Och-Ziff Management Europe Ltd.  Daniel Glazer discussed US developments with a focus on the expansion of the doctrine to the internet, where trademarks are used in domain names or in meta tags or keywords.  The panel discussed the fine line between confusion and diversion and the fact that US courts are really trying to protect senior mark good will and against unfair competition.  The panel debated what was permissible and indeed healthy free riding.  They also debated the merits of using the initial interest confusion doctrine to police domain names.  The panel agreed that in the current era, consumers are used to deceitful metatags and more wary of commercialised hyperlinks so confusion is a lot less likely. Professor Anne Bartow argued that one can no longer assume that consumers are unsophisticated.  She went on to query whether the law should remedy a situation where there is confusion that is cured before the point of sale.

In a session discussing dilution Law in the European Union & the United States, Trevor Cook (Bird and Bird) began with a discussion of the EU’s approach.  He noted the over-intellectualisation of simple legal tests which was a common complaint in several other panels.  Professor Marshall Leaffer discussed US developments in dilution and the case of Visa v JSL Corp.  In that case, Professor Leafer argued that the question of likelihood of confusion – which is a question of fact – was approached in a fast and loose manner. He also said that the case highlighted that the evidence required to prove a dilution case was very unclear. A European speaker helpfully reminded the audience that reconciling EU and US policy and legal approaches was not simple as there is no unfair competition law in the UK and some other EU states.

The well-attended sunrise seminar on “Rule of Law on the Internet: Feasible or Fantasy”, started with views from Richard Cotton of NBC Universal Media.  He stated that the question was not “whether” we should have a rule of law on the internet, but rather “when” and “how”.  He discussed a fundamental problem being one of attitude, with many downloaders thinking that “if it’s so easy to pirate, it can’t be wrong”.  Piracy is moving from being treated as a nuisance, to a problem that the FBI and homeland security are now enforcing against.

In terms of legitimizing tools, he discussed the development of ancillary markets and goods such as Netflix, and Xbox live which are robust and legitimate markets that rely on internet streaming technologies.  In his view, encouragement of these delivery models will give illegal downloaders a legitimate alternative.  However, he emphasised that the challenge will be to create a culture that will accept copyright piracy as a wrong and likened this to being a parent training a recalcitrant child.

Justice Peter Charleton commented that the EU has compulsory anonymity on internet. And that a cultural problem was that anti-globalism is a big movement so that theft from “anonymous capitalist” was thought to be ok. The panel agreed that IP theft was like drug addiction where demand generates supply.

In the session, “Enforcement Issues Including New Government Initiatives”, Stevan Mitchell (the ESA) and Peter Fowler (USPTO Enforcement) discussed the extent of the enforcement problem.  Twenty five per cent of all internet traffic globally involves unauthorized distribution of copyright files.  One assessment had 43 illegal downloading websites register 146 million hits per day.  Bottom line is that there is a huge appetite for TV and film downloading.  Peter Fowler emphasised the need for cultural change akin to the shift that led to seatbelt wearing.  He also discussed the US “Operation in our Sites” which had been seizing domain names of illegal download sites.  He emphasized that the academic debate over whether creative adaptations should be free was moot as copyright infringement is illegal and a crime.  For enforcement officers there was no debate.  He also highlighted a shift in counterfeiting.  Counterfeiters are now trying to make higher profits by making goods as close as possible to the real luxury item and selling goods on deceptive websites at matching prices (as opposed to a severely discounted price that would indicate a “fake”) in order the maximise profits.

Other paths of enforcement include cooperative agreements between registries to seize domain names.  Importantly it is also to target 3rd party providers eg agents for service and paypal.  If money supply can be cut off, then enforcement agencies will try to do so.

In the session “Trademark Law: Smell and Look-a-likes: a Comparative Analysis” Anna Carboni presented an update on smell and look alike cases including the controversial L’Oreal v Bellure case.  Carboni highlighted the fact that the British Brands study showed the customers can be easily confused by look alike packaging. The panel including Robert Burrell pointed out that surveys used in the British Brands study and other surveys used to support a senior mark owner are flawed due to the prevalence of leading questions.  On another point, Jane Ginsburg re-emphasised that “lured” does not mean confused.  Consumers learn for example, that supermarket shelves are stocked with similar looking house brands.  The Hon. Justice Robin Jacobs agreed saying that judges shop and are also aware of brand generics.  The question should be whether reasonable customers are likely to be confused and whether the company intended to confuse consumers.  Justice Jacobs observed that brand owners are now scared to sue “home brands” which are put out by supermarkets because supermarkets may retaliate and not stock the senior brand.

In the session “Adwords: a Comparative Analysis” Professor Marshall Leaffer discussed the proposition that after the case of Rescue.com, selling trademarks as keywords is “use in commerce” and subject to the Lanham Act.  Professor Barton Beebe discussed the increase in consumer sophistication and that the legal question had moved on from “use” to “likelihood of confusion” and in the future will be preoccupied with predicting levels of consumer sophistication.

Prof. Dr. Peter Ruess presented a convincing case for protection of well-known brands.  Interestingly calling it naïve to use the phrase “comparative advertising” in cases that were clearly “bait and switch”.  The panel seemed divided on the line between “genuine” comparative advertising and the misappropriation of goodwill.  Ruess argued that using the goodwill of a senior mark to lure a customer is not comparative advertising and is not in the public interest.  Professor Beebe argued that encouraging free competition is in the public interest.  The panel seemed divided between recognising the property rights of high investing brand owners and free competition.

Overall this was a fascinating and informative conference.  The program and list of speakers can be found here.  Proceedings of the conference will also be published in an upcoming volume.

Vicki Huang is a Research Associate with IPRIA and a Lecturer at Deakin Law School

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A few thoughts on iiNet FFC decision

March 17, 2011

On 24 February the iiNet decision generated significant buzz in the media, academy and anyone with an interest in cyber-regulation or copyright. Kimberlee Weatherall first posted the article below on her blog LawFont, and we are reposting it here to provide our audience with her expert exposition. As mentioned in Kimberlee’s article, Fortnightly Review author David Brennan also wrote a piece for The Age, and hopefully the conversation between these analyses will generate some excellent discussion and commentary within our community of readers and authors.

A few thoughts on iiNet FFC decision

By Kimberlee Weatherall

By now, all the copyright nerds in the world know the headlines: the Full Federal Court has handed down its decision in the iiNet case; that the appeal was dismissed in a 2:1 decision (Emmett and Nicholas JJ; Jagot J dissenting). Most people also will know that the reasoning is very, very different from the Trial Judge’s decision, and certainly contemplates, in a way that the Trial Judge didn’t, that in different factual circumstances an ISP could be liable for authorising infringement by its BitTorrenting users. The various major law firms have issued their summaries, I refer you there for an overview. Assoc Prof David Brennan from Melbourne Uni has expressed his succinct, and compelling view.

The decision is really long: it half looks like all three judges wrote as if theirs was to be the main decision (with others concurring or dissenting more briefly). A close reading reveals why. Although it is fair to say that the majority judges reach broadly the same conclusion on broadly similar grounds (namely, that the AFACT notices did not contain enough information to require action on the part of iiNet), they conceptualise the facts quite differently, and demonstrate important differences of approach. My early thoughts are below the fold. This one’s for people generally familiar with the case and Australian copyright law though – beginners need to start, at least, with the law firm case notes.

Conceptualising the facts

Emmett J’s judgment reads like a borderline one to me: it’s almost like he came within a hair trigger of finding authorisation. He emphasises iiNet’s ‘contumelious disregard’ for the rights of the copyright owners, suggests that iiNet ‘tacitly approved’ of the infringements, and highlights the facts that appear to have come quite close to constituting authorisation. Ultimately, Emmett J is not satisfied that sufficient information was provided by AFACT to trigger authorisation. Emmett J also seems concerned that iiNet ought not be required to bear the whole cost of any system.

Nicholas J seems to view iiNet’s behaviour as far less egregious: it is Nicholas J, for example, who emphasises that iiNet’s apparent ‘indifference’ could not simply be characterised as wrongful, based as it apparently was on a belief that iiNet was not legally obliged to act. One has the sense, however, that insofar as Nicholas J was concerned that iiNet not be held liable for taking a position on the law that was not entirely judicially unsupported, his Honour would be less sympathetic in a future case, where an ISP would no longer be able to take that attitude in light of the decisions in iiNet. It is Nicholas J who seems most concerned with the possibility that ISPs will be incentivized to suspend or terminate users all too readily to avoid future litigation.

Jagot J, the dissenting judge, roundly condemns iiNet’s attitude. Her Honour emphasises iiNet’s refusals to cooperate, in effect holding iiNet responsible for any results of its failure to cooperate – including the fact that it had insufficient information to be, perhaps, fully confident that infringement was occurring. ‘Be it on iiNet’s head’, as Jagot J would have it.

Authorisation: Reaffirming the existing case law

The three judges affirm a more traditional conception of authorisation in copyright than that we saw in the Trial Judgment. They confirm that Moorhouse’s phrase, stating that to authorise is to ‘sanction, countenance or approve’ infringement is to be read disjunctively – one is sufficient. The Judges also reject the apparent attempt by the Trial Judge to revive the Justice Jacob reasoning in Moorhouse from the first instance decision: rejecting the idea that there needed to be some ‘sense of official approval or favour’ in order to show authorisation.

On the meaning of authorisation, Emmett J’s judgment is the most wide-ranging, in that it adopts, perhaps affirms, much of the language from cases like Cooper in a series of phrases drawn from earlier cases. I really wish judges would not repeat a series of phrases about the law in this decontextualised way. It seems practically designed to give comfort to the prospective plaintiff in an authorisation case: you can always find a phrase that suits.

On the meaning of authorisation, I recommend the judgment of Justice Nicholas, which is I think, the easier judgment to read and understand, having ‘synthesised’ the precedent more.

‘Means of Infringement’
The three judges – implicitly or explicitly – reject Justice Cowdroy’s threshold test. Under Justice Cowdroy’s approach at trial, iiNet did not provide the ‘means of infringement, in the relevant sense used in Moorhouse, in that it did not extend an invitation to the iiNet users to use its facilities to do acts comprised in the copyright of the Copyright Owners’ and consequently did not authorise infringement. In other words, this question of whether the party provided the ‘means of infringement’ operates as a threshold test, without which authorisation will not be found.

Justice Emmett almost seems determined to politely pass over this approach by the Trial Judge like a polite host ignoring the uncouth table manners of an ill-assorted guest. Emmett J notes the reasoning of the Trial Judge, using the mild epithet of ‘unconventional’ to describe the structure of the reasons. But once Emmett J has described the primary judge’s approach, this phrase never appears again in the judgment. Both Justice Nicholas and Justice Jagot more explicitly reject the Trial Judge’s approach: Jagot J more fulsomely.

The crux of the case: knowledge
Both Emmett J and Nicholas J were dissatisfied with the information provided in AFACT’s notices: this finding lies at the heart of their rejection of AFACT’s case on authorisation. More or less, the notices provided by AFACT gave rise to ‘reason to suspect’ infringements on the part of iiNet’s users, but not knowledge of specific acts of infringement sufficient to warrant iiNet acting to suspend or terminate internet accounts.

Emmett J thought that AFACT’s notices would have to have included:

  1. Information in writing of particulars of specific primary acts of infringement of copyright of the Copyright Owners, by use of particular IP Addresses of iiNet customers; and
  2. Unequivocal and cogent evidence of the alleged primary acts of infringement by use of the iiNet service in question; at least information as to the way in which the material supporting the allegations was derived, that was adequate to enable iiNet to verify the accuracy of the allegations.

Justice Jagot takes a very different view here: stating that the AFACT notices ‘contained prima facie credible evidence of widespread and repeated infringements of the appellant’s copyright by iiNet customers and users’, rising above the level of ‘mere unsubstantiated or unreliable allegations’. What is more, if iiNet did not have sufficient information to judge the accuracy of the notices, that was iiNet’s own fault: having refused to engage with AFACT, it could not then plead its own ignorance.

Did iiNet have the ‘power to prevent’ the infringements?
All three judges consider that iiNet had the technical and contractual power to terminate or suspend its services to subscribers on the basis of copyright infringement; this was relevant, albeit not determinative (cf the Trial Judge who seemed to say that a power to suspend or terminate could not be reasonable and so wasn’t really relevant). On this question, again I think Justice Nicholas’ judgment is the more interesting one: his Honour talks about the difference between ‘direct’ powers to prevent infringement (ie, to stop that particular act) and indirect powers (like taking away internet access so they can’t do anything, let alone infringe, online).

The judges also talk about another statutory factor, the ‘relationship with the infringer’, but it’s not that interesting. I never really know what to make of this factor anyway. There was a contractual relationship – so? Really, most of the action is in the next of the statutory factors in authorisation: whether iiNet took reasonable steps to prevent the infringement.

Reasonable steps

All three judges accept that sending warnings to users ought to be considered a reasonable step. None of the judges was wiling to accept that people when notified of copyright infringement would simply ignore the notice: not all would be aware that such activities infringe copyright; not all would be aware they can be detected.

Worryingly for many, I suspect, is the fact that all three judges also contemplate that suspension or termination of internet service is also a reasonable step. In this respect, a really important consideration that the various judges point to is the Safe Harbours: specifically, the provision that requires parties wanting to take advantage of the Safe Harbours to have, and reasonably implement, a policy for the termination of the accounts of repeat infringers in appropriate circumstances. This is evidence, to the judges, that termination is contemplated as a reasonable step.

iiNet’s protestations concerning the expense, difficulty, and complication of having a system for sending warnings and following up with suspension or termination fell on deaf ears of two judges. Justice Emmett, of the three judges, seems the most ready to count this as an issue, noting the ‘difficult judgments’ involved, the number of notices received, the many, many issues of design choice in such a system (see paragraphs 206-207). Perhaps for this reason, Justice Emmett is the most explicit in practically setting out his own version of a graduated response system. The key paragraph here is paragraph 210. It’s kind of too long to quote here, but go have a look. In summary, it says that ‘before it would be reasonable for iiNet to take steps to suspend or terminate a customer’s account’, AFACT would need to send notices providing ‘unequivocal and cogent evidence’, and undertake to reimburse iiNet for its reasonable costs. But most extraordinary is the way that the Judges say that AFACT’s notices should set out a series of specific steps that it requests. According to the Judge, AFACT should request the following steps:

  1. iiNet should inform its customer of the particulars of the allegations of primary infringement involving the use of that customer’s iiNet account
  2. iiNet should invite the customer to indicate whether the service has been used for acts of infringement as alleged;
  3. iiNet should request the customer either to refute the allegations or to give appropriate assurances that there will be no repetition of the acts of infringement;
  4. iiNet should warn the customer that, if no satisfactory response is received within a reasonable time, perhaps 7 days, the iiNet service will be suspended until such time as a reasonable response is received;
  5. iiNet should warn the customer that if there are continued acts of infringement by use of the service, the service will be terminated;
  6. iiNet should terminate the service in the event of further infringements.

OK, strictly, Justice Emmett is not saying that iiNet would have to follow this procedure: it’s what AFACT should request. But the suggestion is strong that this is what Emmett J thinks a reasonable set of steps looks like.

Um, judicial legislation anyone?

It’s kind of extraordinary that his Honour would set out a system in such detail. These weren’t, after all, the facts before the court. It’s also kind of extraordinary that this is his version of reasonable steps, when this set of conditions doesn’t look anything like what has been legislated in other countries, like France, the UK, South Korea, or New Zealand. Justice Emmett’s ‘reasonable steps’, if that is what these are (and as I said, it’s not entirely clear) have none of the procedural protections found in other places – and specifically contemplate termination of Internet service – something the UK wouldn’t even do without a further order from Parliament and which requires independent decision-makers in France, South Korea, and New Zealand. So, like, wow.

Justice Nicholas, on the other hand, is only prepared to say that ‘an ISP should be given considerable latitude when working out the detail of such a system. It is always possible to argue that a system for the issue of warnings and termination could be tougher than it is. But it would be difficult to criticise an ISP on that account if it acted in good faith to devise and implement a system that involved taking such steps against subscribers who the ISP was satisfied had used (or permitted others to use) its facilities for the purpose of committing flagrant acts of copyright infringement’ (at para 750).

Other interesting stuff

There’s so much more, but this post is already too long. Look out for:

  1. The various judges’ views on whether iiNet ‘encouraged’ infringement, and Justice Nicholas’ discussion of iiNet’s alleged ‘indifference’;
  2. The discussion of the Safe Harbours (no judge thought iiNet could use it);
  3. The judges’ struggles to give s 112E some meaning;
  4. The issue of who bears the cost. Emmett J is explicit: AFACT should offer to reimburse. Justice Jagot thinks that this could have been part of a conversation that should have occurred. I didn’t really see much from Nicholas J on this question (but the judgment is long, maybe I’ve missed something).

Oh, and here’s something interesting. You will look in vain for references to much overseas case law or any of the mound of academic writing on the issues involved. If anything, this suggests to me the continuing isolation of the Australian law of authorisation from the law in other jurisdictions. Too close an examination of overseas case law might reveal the differences too starkly? Of course, it would also have made the judgment even longer than it already is. I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies.

Where to from here?

Interesting question. We’ll have to see if there’s going to be an appeal to the High Court (or rather, application for special leave). Failing that, it’s back to the negotiations. Questions of cost (who bears it) are unresolved. It’s not clear to me whether there is enough guidance here to lead to a ready deal, despite Emmett J’s attempts to write a Code of Conduct for the industry. Termination of service is something I can’t imagine the internet industry is all that keen on, but AFACT’s hand to demand more than the mere passing on of warnings may have been strengthened by the frequent references to the reasonableness of termination as a response. So, much to think about. I suppose I should be pleased…

Kimberlee Weatherall is a senior lecturer at the University of Queensland

This article was cross-posted here at LawFont

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Weapons in the Piracy Wars: COICA and Domain Name Seizures

March 17, 2011

By Jake Goldenfein

You may have encountered this image if you recently tried to stream a sporting event online. Domain name seizures in the US occur under civil forfeiture and seizure provisions in the Crimes and Criminal Procedure title of the United States Code. Being territorially restricted, those provisions allow the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) to distrain websites with a .com, .net or .org suffix.

Recent seizures of websites linking streamed sporting events (conveniently 10 days before the Super Bowl) were the directive of phase 3 of ICE’s Operation ‘In Our Sites,’ which began in June 2010. The mandate of ‘In Our Sites’ goes beyond sporting events however, and has targeted websites connected to counterfeit goods, child pornography and first-run movies. Although the process and propriety of those seizures have been questioned, presently working its way through the US political system is the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) that will provide an expedited process to block domains and extend ICE’s reach to content hosted outside the US.

COICA (S. 3804) would authorise the Attorney General to obtain injunctions in rem against websites ‘dedicated to infringing activities.’ Sites are defined as dedicated to infringing activities if ‘primarily designed’, have ‘no demonstrable commercially significant purpose or use other than,’ or are ‘marketed by its operator,’ as offering copyright infringing goods.

Effectively, COICA creates an internet blacklist with ‘offending’ websites added by Court order. Originally there was a second blacklist controlled by the Attorney General without judicial oversight, however that was jettisoned in the bill’s latest iteration. By obtaining a Federal Court injunction, the Attorney General orders U.S. domain name registrars to stop resolving blacklisted domains, leading users instead to an error message.

For infringing domains outside of the U.S, the bill demands internet service providers block offending foreign addresses. This does not prevent access outside of U.S territory, but rather is aimed at preventing the importation into the US (censoring) of goods and services offered by websites deemed ‘dedicated’ to infringing activities.

Introduced by Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy in September, the bill received unanimous approval by the Senate Judiciary Committee in November 2010 under Leahy’s chair. Not surprisingly three of Leahy’s top five campaign contributors are large media organisations. Yet substantial opposition from various groups including Internet Engineers, Human Rights Groups, the Net Coalition, some Senators, and law professors has been successful in preventing the bill passing a full vote on the Senate floor, leading to another Judiciary Committee hearing on 16 February, which led to discussion of substantial modification, and likely a follow-up hearing.

Arguments against the bill include:

  • Blacklisting of websites by Justice Department officials without sufficient judicial oversight offends due process and threatens legitimate political speech.
  • Definitions within the bill, including ‘facilitating infringement’ and ‘dedicated to infringing activities’ are very broad.
  • Blacklisting for copyright infringement purposes may undermine U.S. secondary liability law as well as existing copyright exceptions, limitations and defences.
  • The censorship process causes entire domains to vanish, not just infringing pages or files.
  • The bill creates precedent for internet censorship, and congress should consider the effect for countries less protective of citizens’ rights of free expression.
  • The extraterritorial reach of the court prevents a full and fair trial with all interested parties present.
  • The bill may affect legitimate digital services such as cyberlockers if the Department of Justice decides that piracy is ‘central’ to their businesses.
  • Blacklisting may apply to sites that discuss and advocate for P2P technology or piracy because they sometimes link tools and information intended for file sharing, despite the otherwise political nature of their speech.
  • Censorship may undermine the stability of the internet by encouraging the use of circumvention measures and rerouting internet traffic away from the U.S.

But perhaps the most compelling arguments are found in the joint letter from 49 legal academics in the U.S. Citing jurisprudence, they contend ‘the bill amounts to a constitutional abridgment of freedom of speech because it directs courts to impose “prior restraints” on speech, which are the most serious and least tolerable infringement of First Amendment rights.’ They argue such cases ‘require a court, before the material is completely removed from circulation to make a final determination that material is unlawful after an adversary hearing.’

Contrary to that requirement, the professors claim ‘the Act permits the issuance of speech-suppressing injunctions without any meaningful opportunity for any party to contest the Attorney General’s allegations of unlawful content’ because of inadequate notice provisions and the capacity to enter injunctions ex parte. Requiring the shut down of entire domains rather than blocking specific content is described in the letter as ‘burning down the house to roast the pig.’

More profound however, is the academics’ claim that the bill’s ‘egregious Constitutional infirmities… will not survive judicial scrutiny’ suggesting its significance ‘is entirely symbolic.’ This would be the first time the US would require internet service providers to block speech because of its content. Enjoining ISPs to police users’ activities is an issue of growing judicial significance, not simply in circumstances like the iiNet case in Australia, but also for a range of future measures, including filtering, censorship and levying, that may require ISP cooperation.

Content industries have sought this law for years, and view the new capabilities as a magic bullet for copyright enforcement, with the MPAA and RIAA extensively lobbying for its passage. Lauding the legislation, the bill’s proponents emphasize the derisory economic consequences affected by infringing rogue sites. Previous MPAA interim boss Bob Pisano defended the bill, claiming targeted sites ‘exist for one purpose only – to make a profit using the internet to distribute the stolen and counterfeited goods and ideas of others,’ and that the ‘economic impact of these activities – millions of lost jobs and dollars – is profound.’ Pisano argues the First Amendment was not intended as a shield for those who steal, irrespective of the means. ‘Theft is theft, whether it occurs in a dark alley or in the ether, and to attempt to distinguish the two is to undermine the most basic tenets of our criminal laws.’

Clearly rhetoric laden, such speech reverts back to the questionable conflation of tangible and intellectual goods, and co-opts morality for its justification without acknowledging the concomitant censorship issues. However, other Hollywood groups have claimed that concerns of unlawful censorship are an ‘absurd misrepresentation of civic rights’.

For organisations like MPAA and RIAA who maintain a controversial program of prosecuting online copyright infringement, the new law would amount to another weapon in the arsenal of content protection. But beyond copyright, the bill highlights emerging issues in digital censorship and jurisdiction by entrenching in U.S law filtering of international content that offends local laws – a dangerous precedent that may expand to other types of speech. Passage of this bill would mark a substantial shift in lawmakers’ willingness to regulate cyberspace and a fortiori against the principle of the Single Global Internet.

Jake Goldenfein is a PhD candidate at the Melbourne Law School

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New Models for Book Publishing

February 17, 2011

By Kwanghui Lim

Traditional book publishers have been increasingly challenged by e-books and other digital technologies. We decided to organize a public seminar with industry participants to learn about new opportunities in this area.

A common theme among our speakers was of the growing fault lines between those who create content and those who distribute it. From the point of view of content creators, digital technology is not a bad thing. It presents new ways to reach customers. To a firm like Lonely Planet, printed books, e-books and apps are alternative and useful delivery mechanisms. The heterogeneity is a good thing since each delivery mechanism has its strengths and weaknesses. For example a map-based application on your mobile phone may be useful for navigating the streets of Melbourne, while a printed travel book might be preferred if you are travelling the Australian outback (books are more durable than electronic devices; they also require no electrical power).

Authors are beginning to explore new pricing schemes. For example several authors are trying to sell a larger volume of e-books at lower prices (around $2.99 – $3.99) instead of a small number of regular books at higher prices (say, $10). Other authors are trying “pay what you want” schemes. Our guest speaker Max Barry will be selling his next book as a real time electronic serial, distributing it directly from his website in small chunks and for an attractive price ($6.95). It is too early to know which of these will work well and for whom because the book industry has many different segments of customers with different needs. Furthermore, there are concerns with e-books around the issue of digital piracy. However, we were reminded by one of the speakers that for many authors, obscurity is worse than piracy.

Besides, piracy has long been a threat even with printed books: you will of course remember the photocopy machine which has existed for quite awhile, as well as those suspiciously inexpensive textbooks printed on poor quality paper brought in from various developing countries. It seems to me at least that in the digital world, selling a large volume of e-books at a low price makes a lot of sense. In this context, the serialized e-book has an added advantage because it builds a repeated interaction between the reader the author. Over time this may help create loyalty towards the author.

I see three areas of opportunity and these arise along the fault lines described above.

The first opportunity is with “apps”. It crossed my mind earlier this month that simply repackaging a book as an app gives the author tremendous freedom. With books, the author is stuck with publishing delays, parallel import laws and other legal impediments, not just the need to physically deliver products. With apps, all that is gone. Re-purpose a book as an app and it morphs into a software program, so different rules apply. If you go one step further and make the app exciting to use, you can counteract the myth that printed books are superior. Those who have tried The Elements on an iPad will find it hard to go back to a printed Periodic Table. Similarly, having compared both this app and the book version, I much prefer learning about photography using the app version which is more interactive and has built-in videos.

A second opportunity lies in offering new skills combinations. In order to serialize his next novel, Max Barry combined his computer programming expertise with a passion for writing: he is essentially selling each subscriber a private RSS feed as a separate product. Most people do not have this combination of skills, especially the generation of authors that went to journalism school and did not acquire a technical background. An opportunity exists for people who can bridge this divide and provide new tools and services to help content authors to craft their products and reach customers easily. For example, Graeme Connelly spoke to us about the new “expresso printer” at Melbourne University Bookstore which produces small print runs that were uneconomical in the past. I believe this is only a starting point, e.g., we don’t yet have the equivalent of WordPress for creating books with existing tools being either too complex or too amateurish.

The third opportunity lies in further disaggregating the value chain. I learned from the session that one of the benefits to authors of going with traditional book publishers is their expertise in editing. Publishers convert the messy raw material that is a manuscript into a curated experience that is proof-read, edited and checked. I suspect that the editing activity will split apart into a distinct industry segment, just as has happened in other industries such as semiconductors, which used to be vertically integrated but which now has some firms focusing exclusively on system development and others on chip design or manufacturing. This is pure speculation on my part, but I don’t see why the editing process, while valuable, needs to be tied much longer to the manufacture and distribution of physical products.

It is hard to predict how things will work out and I don’t think the traditional book will completely disappear. This industry is definitely going to be interesting to watch over the next few years.

Kwanghui Lim is an Associate Professor at the Melbourne Business School

This article was cross posted here at Core Economics http://economics.com.au/?p=6702

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ACTA: new (leaked) text, new issues…

July 15, 2010

By Kim Weatherall

What a surprise! Despite the best efforts of at least one negotiating party, the ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) text has leaked, again.  This post looks at last night’s leak, and at the negotiations.  In short, though: the text is an improvement that continues to have significant problems.  The negotiations face some significant obstacles right now – but continue at break-neck speed, and I have this sinking feeling that ACTA could be spawning at least one evil little mini-me already…

Background

For those of you who haven’t been following this particular obsession of mine (see my April 9 and April 23 posts), ACTA is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement – a plurilateral agreement being negotiated between Australia, Canada, the EU (represented by the European Commission, and the EU President), Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States.  The DFAT website on the agreement with background is here.  In theory, ACTA is meant to be targeted at establishing “a new standard of intellectual property (IP) enforcement to combat the high levels of commercial scale trade in counterfeit and pirated goods worldwide”.  In reality, it’s a comprehensive re-write of IP enforcement obligations at an international level, with something close to a rightsholders’ wishlist and little protection for end users or the rest of us.

The ninth round of ACTA negotiations took place in Lucerne, Switzerland on 28 June to 1 July 2010. You can basically ignore the press release: the latest one is here.  In April, the parties decided to release a draft text, which has been comprehensively analysed (and criticised).  If you’re interested, there’s a very long section-by-section analysis of the last draft text available online.

At the latest round, the parties decided not to release a text – but, surprise surprise, one has leaked already, this one dated 1 July.  This post analyses some of the changes.

So, what’s changed?

There are basically 4 big ticket, big controversy issues in ACTA that have been getting attention in international circles, and where we need to see whether anything has changed.

  1. Expansion of criminal liability in IP;
  2. statutory damages (that is, ‘fixed’ amounts for damages that in some cases have led to very significant awards, like the US$200,000+ award against one US woman for file-sharing around 25 songs;
  3. ISP liability and what ISPs have to do to get protection from liability (three strikes; notice and takedown; etc etc); and
  4. The possible impact on access to medicines and the trade in generic drugs

Internationally, ‘anti-circumvention’ (digital lock) provisions are also controversial, but I won’t go in to them because Australia already has (and, through AUSFTA, is committed to) very strong provisions in that area.

Criminal Liability (leaked text page 15)

The criminal provisions are quite different to what we saw in the last text.  The last text looked like the AUSFTA provisions – and would extend criminal liability to non-commercial acts of sufficient scale (read, file-sharing) and single acts of infringement for commercial gain.  These provisions are gone, replaced with a requirement that parties apply criminal liability to “acts carried out in the context of commercial activity for direct or indirect economic or commercial advantage”, with a provision that would allow countries to exclude end consumers from criminal liability. The exclusion is a notable improvement on the previous draft which would have required criminalising lots of end users (although it wouldn’t help in Australia, because of AUSFTA).

Liability under the new text is still very broad. The reference to ‘commercial activity for direct or indirect economic or commercial advantage’ could be interpreted as covering single acts (eg, a business is found using one unlicensed copy of software), and has plenty of scope to catch legitimate businesses acting in good faith, who might have published a book believing they have a fair use or fair dealing defences, but who are certainly engaging in ‘commercial activity’.

As Daniel Gervais notes in the third edition of his book on the TRIPS Agreement, the references in TRIPS Article 61 to ‘wilful’ acts ‘on a commercial scale’ is “not synonymous with commercial activity.  It requires that the activity have a demonstrable, significant commercial impact” (emphasis added).  In a footnote, Gervais also notes that the TRIPS expression “corresponds to what have been referred to as ‘professional infringers’”.  In my view, TRIPS is perfectly adequate; it should be left as is.

Statutory Damages (leaked text page 7)

The provision on damages has changed too.  The April ACTA draft seemed to have moved away from requiring countries to adopt statutory damages, and, in particular, it seemed to allow Australia to retain its system of ‘additional’ (effectively punitive) damages. There’s some flexibility there still. Statutory damages are not required, but a country is left with a choice: statutory damages or other ‘presumptions’, or additional damages (to what end is entirely unclear; there’s no requirement that the damages be punitive for example or deterrent).

ACTA will still restrict what a country can do to protect end-users (ie teenagers, grandparents and anyone else with an internet connection) from excessive damages awards should they be caught infringing and have the misfortune to be sued.  There is nothing in the text that limits the rules to exclude damages for ‘innocent infringers’. I’m a little unsure whether this means Australian law would have to change (it depends on whether the current Australian limit of additional damages to ‘flagrant’ infringement is ‘implicit’ in the reference to ‘additional’ damages).  In short, I can see the provision is pretty vague, but I don’t like it. I think it achieves very little if you’re serious about increasing enforcement, but it does restrict policy freedom in the cases that ACTA isn’t meant to be targeted at – end users and consumers.

ISP Liability, Safe Harbours, Three Strikes

ACTA has a strong focus on intermediary/secondary liability.  This is the big factor distinguishing ACTA from previous multilateral agreements that don’t touch on this at all. There seems to have been quite a bit of progress on ISP liability.  Not all of it good.

For one thing, third party liability is still in the text (Article 2.18.2 page 19).  This is bad, and takes ACTA well beyond its remit, which is supposed to be enforcement, not substantive law.  Not just that, but I think the provision (at least, if it includes the proposed footnote) is inconsistent with Australia’s present law of authorisation, certainly in copyright and probably in patent and trade mark too. A few thoughts:

  • Interestingly, the majority of countries (excluding Japan, EU and Switzerland) seem to want to confine the provision to copyright, excluding the question of third party liability for trade mark, patent, designs etc.  This is good.  At least in Australia, authorisation in IP outside the direct area of copyright is a less settled and almost certainly different;
  • The US and Mexico want a footnote that seeks to define third party liability. Define it, not just give examples of what might be covered. And define it in a way that doesn’t match Australian law. The footnote seems to require liability for ‘knowingly and materially aiding any act of copyright infringement’.  Under Australian law, you can ‘aid’ infringement and even know about it, but if you don’t have the power to actually prevent it, or if you’ve taken reasonable steps, say, to reduce infringement you won’t be liable;
  • Still, as before, the footnote also says that “the application of third party liability may include consideration of exceptions or limitations to exclusive rights that are confined to certain special cases…” (etc etc). I have no idea what this meaningless language is trying to say; and
  • There seems to be no requirement on the face of the text that the direct infringement occur. Australian law generally requires proof of actual direct infringement before there is third party liability (see eg WEA v Hanimex)

In addition, provisions on granting injunctions against intermediaries whose services are used for infringement are still in there. I’ve argued at some length this is a bad idea in a treaty.

Regarding safe harbours for ISPs, it looks like the EU has proposed a compromise position, and it has some improvements from last time (for a detailed consideration of the previous version, see Margot Kaminski on Balkinization).  Importantly, there is no longer any language anything akin to ‘three strikes’ language that might require ISPs to start sending letters followed by termination of internet service. There is no requirement, as was found in the previous draft, that the ISP have a policy “to address the unauthorized storage or transmission of materials protected by copyright or related rights”; no requirement to terminate repeat infringers or the like.

This of course won’t stop individual countries introducing three-strikes type laws – but it will mean ACTA doesn’t require it.  The closest the proposal comes to having such a requirement is the provision saying that Parties “shall endeavour to promote the development of mutually supportive relationships between online service providers and right holders to deal effectively with patent, industrial design, trademark and copyright or related rights infringement which takes place by means of the Internet…”. This is a Japanese proposal, and doesn’t look like much of an obligation, although no doubt it will be used rhetorically sometime. I don’t think it should be there, but I don’t think it goes near 3 strikes either.

Access to Medicines

The final ‘big ticket item is the question of the impact of ACTA on access to medicines and the trade in legitimate generic pharmaceuticals. This is something of a ‘hot button’ issue at the moment in international IP owing to Europe’s practice of halting shipments ‘in transit’ (ie going from one developing country to another) on the basis of infringement of EU IP rights (even though the goods never enter the EU market and even where there’s no infringement of rights in the exporting or importing country).  Brazil and India have initiated a dispute in the WTO about this practice.  Since earlier drafts of ACTA included provisions on applying border measures, to goods in-transit, to protect patents, and no reference to things like the WTO Declaration on Public Health, there have been legitimate concerns that access to medicines was going to be hindered by ACTA.

Where are we at now? Well, there is now reference to parties taking measures ‘necessary to protect public health and nutrition’ upfront in the text, so that’s an improvement.  And according to the press release the border measures will not be required to be applied to cases of suspected patent infringement.  On the other hand, several countries still want the provisions applied to ‘in transit goods’, and the text still allows a country to stop goods in-transit, on the basis that the goods infringe IP in the transit country, even where they do not infringe rights in either the exporting or importing country.  And several of the seized shipments in Europe were stopped on trade mark, not patent issues. So I don’t think the concerns have entirely gone away by any means.

In addition to these ‘big ticket’ areas, the other issue that’s been troubling critics has been the lack of balance in the earlier ACTA drafts and the agreement’s potential impact on fundamental rights and liberties.  To put it bluntly, there were all kinds of rights for right holders, and almost no acknowledgment that IP is about a balance of interests; that consumers and other users have rights too, and that right holders sometimes abuse their rights and that needs to be controlled. It was said in the last draft that there would be more provisions on the other side of the balance.

The new leaked text does have more detailed general principles upfront, including ‘public interest’ principles in draft.  The provision on protecting privacy has been expanded. ACTA raises a lot of privacy issues because it anticipates the release of information about individuals to right holders to facilitate enforcement: in litigation evidence-gathering, by ISPs, by police to their colleagues overseas.  Some of this information would be considered private: names, addresses…activities online… . So privacy is important. The text itself is pretty much what you’d expect: that is, it leaves it to individual countries to work out how they want to protect privacy. As I’ve said in my ACTA megapaper analysing the last public draft, this won’t help Australians all that much because our protection for private information isn’t all that strong and is based only in legislation (we have no higher constitutional or human rights principles to appeal to).  But it’s good to have it in there.

Finally, too, there is some text:

  • On the importance of ‘a balance of rights and obligations’, and to allow parties to adopt measures to protect public interests in health, nutrition, and socio-economic and technological development (Art 1.X.1-1.X.2 p3); and
  • Acknowledging that “appropriate measures … may be needed <strong>to prevent the abuse of intellectual property rights by right holders or the resort to practices which unreasonably restrain trade</strong> or adversely affect the international transfer of technology” (Art 1.X.3 p3).

Bizarrely, this provision seems to be controversial: proposed by Australia, NZ, Singapore and Canada, there’s another bloc wanting it removed: Japan, Mexico, Korea and the US. Again, why? If ACTA is, as the negotiators keep saying, meant to be consistent with TRIPS and consistent with the WTO Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health, and will allow countries to respect fundamental rights and liberties, why protest these principles? Why even, as the EU wants to do, demote them to the level of ‘preambular statements’? (I will say though I’m pleased that Australia is on the side of the forces for good here – you go AG’s!). All I can say is that if this language, or something like it, isn’t included in the final agreement, it’s going to be embarrassing – and confirm a lot of suspicions about what the agreement is all about…

Where to from here? Hypocrisy, Red Lines, Racing Negotiations and the potential for ACTA-Spawn

So where to from here? The parties are still talking about concluding negotiations by the end of the year.  According to IP Watch, some of the negotiators have seen “a real acceleration” in the more recent rounds of negotiations, and Prof Geist has opined that we could in fact see conclusion of the negotiations this year. Perhaps this is why the tension between some of the negotiating parties is bursting out a little in public.

US negotiator Stan McCoy has said that “there was some progress on ACTA in Lucerne, but not as much the U.S. had hoped”, and the EU negotiators have been accusing the US of ‘hypocrisy’ and drawing ‘red lines’.  To an outsider, it looks like they’re getting to crunch time: and the question of exactly how far they’re willing to compromise has to be faced – but they will be faced, because everyone involved wants to move on after over 2.5 fairly intense negotiating years and more rounds in 2010 than one would care to count. Me? I think they’ll reach agreement, and soon, and they’ve all committed too much to see it fall over.

But regardless of what happens in the ACTA negotiations, I have a feeling that we’ll be seeing something very close to these provisions again real soon.  Because there is another set of negotiations going on at the moment: the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations. The TPP is supposed to be “a high-quality, comprehensive 21st century Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that increases economic integration in the Asia-Pacific region”.  That is trade-diplomat-code-speak for “it’s an FTA with everything, like the AUSFTA”. And that means IP will be in it.

The TPP involves Australia, Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Singapore, Peru, the United States and Vietnam.  So looking at that, you have Australia, NZ, Singapore, and the US who are all in both.  Peru and Chile are already party to an FTA with the US, which means that it’s likely they can sign up to quite a lot of what you’d find in ACTA.  That leaves Brunei, and Vietnam… who I don’t imagine will be focusing strong efforts on the IP aspects.  And you can bet that at least some significant portion of the people doing the negotiating on behalf of the ACTA countries on IP issues is also in the TPP IP negotiations.  Sheer practicality I suspect means they’ll be starting with some bastardised evil-spawn combination of the US FTAs and ACTA. The mega-long IP chapter from hell, I’m predicting. I can feel that strange combination of glazed eyes and boiling blood starting already. Grrr.

Kimberlee Weatherall is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland

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The Safe Harbour UGC Business Model: judicial endorsement in Viacom v YouTube

July 15, 2010

By Dr Melissa de Zwart

From the time that the Internet was opened up to widespread general use, service providers were concerned regarding their potential vicarious liability for end-user copyright infringement, where the service provider had played no active role in the choice of that content.  This was due to the decision in MAI Systems Corporation v Peak Computer 991 F. 2d 511 (1993) in which the United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, held that when a computer was switched on, causing the operating system to run, the reproduction of that program on the RAM was an act of reproduction within the rights of the copyright owner.

This generated concern within the US Government, then espousing the principles and visions of the Clinton/Gore sponsored A Framework for Global Electronic Commerce, that such potential for liability would act as a roadblock to the uptake of electronic commerce by making business too risky for new ISPs to enter the market. This was despite the decision in Religious Technology Center v Netcom 907 F. Supp. 1361 (N.D. Cal. 1995) where the US District Court held that ISP Netcom should not be liable for the infringing activities of its end user, concluding (at 23) that:

‘The Court is not persuaded by plaintiff’s argument that Netcom is directly liable for the copies that are made and stored on its computer. Where the infringing subscriber is clearly directly liable for the same act, it does not make sense to adopt a rule that could lead to liability of countless parties whose role in the infringement is nothing more than setting up and operating a system that is necessary for the functioning of the Internet. Such a result is unnecessary as there is already a party directly liable for causing the copies to be made.’

(A sentiment echoed fifteen years later by Cowdroy J in the Federal Court in the recent Roadshow Films v iiNet decision ) Click here for our earlier coverage of that case.

The Safe Harbo(u)r Solution

The US took these concerns to the negotiations that resulted in the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) but only succeeded in having the matter of intermediary liability dealt with in the Agreed Statement to Article 8 of the WCT:

‘It is understood that the mere provision of physical facilities for enabling or making a communication does not in itself amount to communication within the meaning of this Treaty or the Berne Convention. It is further understood that nothing in Article 8 precludes a Contracting Party from applying Article 11bis(2).’

In Australia, this resulted in the insertion of Section 39B in the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth).  However in the US it resulted in the introduction of the ‘safe harbor’ provisions in s 512 of the Copyright Act (US) by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998.  That section provides that a service provider’s liability with respect to infringing material hosted on its system or network is limited where:

  • the service provider does not have actual knowledge of infringement and is not aware of facts or circumstances from which the infringement is apparent, and upon receiving such knowledge ‘acts expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material’;
  • ‘does not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, in a case in which the service provider has the right and ability to control such activity’; and
  • Upon notification of infringement ‘responds expeditiously to remove, or disable access to’ that material.

As was observed by the US Senate Committee in 1998: ‘by limiting the liability of service providers, the DMCA ensures that the efficiency of the Internet will continue to improve and that the variety and quality of services on the Internet will continue to expand.’

Australia was obliged to introduce a safe harbour regime as a consequence of its entry into the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement.  This was achieved through the introduction of Division 2AA of Part V of the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) by the US Free Trade Implementation Act 2004 (Cth) and the Copyright Legislation Amendment Act 2004 (Cth).

The existence of ‘safe harbour’ protection, limiting liability to an obligation to remove infringing content upon receiving appropriate notification of infringement, created the opportunity for the evolution of websites such as YouTube and Flickr, which host content uploaded by end users (the ubiquitous user generated content (UGC)).

Content is uploaded in such quantities that individual scrutiny of the content is impossible (according to the YouTube judgment content is currently being uploaded to YouTube at the rate of over 24 hours of video every minute).  The end user licence agreements that the contributors to such sites agree to with the service provider require users to declare that such content is not infringing.  The service provider will remove infringing content only upon specific notification from the copyright owner, under the provisions of the DMCA safe harbor provisions. Thus the proliferation of user-generated content directly owes its success to the introduction of the safe harbor provisions which legitimise this ‘infringe now, ask questions later’ approach.

The YouTube case is therefore important because it tested the legality of the business model created and facilitated by the safe harbor regime.

Viacom versus UGC (again) –

Viacom International, Inc., v. YouTube, Inc., 2010 WL 2532404 (SDNY June 23, 2010).

Viacom commenced proceedings against YouTube in March 2007 alleging that You Tube (and its parent company Google) were liable for both primary and secondary infringement of copyright.  (As an aside, the involvement of Viacom in this case is interesting as Viacom, owner of several major production houses including Walt Disney, Dream Works, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon, to name but a few, was one of the earliest content owners to take on the first fan created web sites, namely Star Trek, and in doing so, created very bad publicity amongst its fan base.)

YouTube made an application for summary judgment on the basis of the safe harbor provisions, claiming that under the relevant provisions of the DMCA they had insufficient notice of the relevant infringements.  Thus much of the judgment is concerned with what constitutes knowledge or awareness of infringement.

In his judgment, Judge Stanton avoids most of the vicious allegations and abuses which had been aired by the parties in their Memoranda in Support of Summary Judgment in March 2010, particularly those regarding alleged admissions by Google about how much YouTube content was likely to be infringing.  Rather he focuses upon a straightforward interpretation of the notice and take down provisions, in particular, whether the statutory requirement of ‘actual knowledge that the material or an activity using the material on the system or network is infringing’ and ‘facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent’ are satisfied by a general awareness of infringements or whether it requires ‘actual or constructive knowledge of specific and identifiable infringements of individual items’.

Judge Stanton undertakes an extensive consideration of the legislative history of the provisions and concludes that the provisions require ‘knowledge of specific and identifiable infringements of particular individual items. Mere knowledge of prevalence of such activity in general is not enough.’

Out of the millions of works that may be posted on the platform, the service provider cannot be expected to know which works are infringing, nor indeed which are subject to fair use or a licence arrangement.  The Judge declined to shift the burden to the service provider to monitor such content and indeed he observed that each of the video clips in suit had been removed from YouTube, most in response to a DMCA takedown notice, usually within a 24 hour period. He further supports his conclusion with reference to a number of cases, including Perfect 10 Inc v CC Bill LLC 488 F. 3d 1102 (9th Cir 2007) and Tiffany (NJ) Inc v eBay 600 F. 3d 93 (2nd Cir 2010) (which concerns trade mark law and therefore does not involve DMCA considerations) and distinguishing the circumstance of peer to peer file sharing in Grokster , concluding that : ‘General knowledge that infringement is “ubiquitous” does not impose a duty on the service provider to monitor or search its service for infringements.’

Finally, the Judge dealt with a number of other points including the matter of whether the service provider receives a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, in a case where the service provider has the right and ability to control the activity.  The Judge concludes that the provider must know of the particular case before it can control it.

The decision emphasises the need for the service provider to know of and respond to a specific infringement.  General knowledge of infringements at large is not enough to constitute knowledge for the purposes of the section. It is not clear at this time whether the judgment will be appealed.

Outcomes: Actual Knowledge Required

This outcome is consistent with the approach taken by Cowdroy J in the iiNet decision Click here for our earlier coverage of that case.

Considering the application of the Australian safe harbour provisions, Cowdroy J concluded that iiNet did have a repeat infringer policy which would have entitled it to rely upon the safe harbour limitations had infringement been established.

Consistent with the passive approach to copyright enforcement endorsed by the YouTube decision, Cowdroy J imposed the burden of identifying and establishing infringement clearly on the copyright owners.

Relevance of US Cases?

Importantly, Cowdroy J also observed that US authorities on the safe harbour provisions ‘can provide significant assistance’ in the interpretation of the corresponding Australian provisions.  It should be noted that these observations are obiter, the Court having found that there was no authorisation of copyright infringement by iiNet.

The outcomes of the YouTube case represent an endorsement of the UGC model that has been adopted so enthusiastically by web users and which now represents a vital component of Web 2.0.

Dr Melissa de Zwart is an Associate Professor in Law at the University of South Australia.

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In this edition (#5)…

April 23, 2010

In this edition, Senior Lecturer Kim Weatherall reflects on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), post-negotiations.  And, Associate Professor Melissa deZwart and lawyer Vicki Huang look at the new Digital Economy Act (UK) in light of the iiNet decision and the outlook on attempts to clamp down on online piracy.

Comments Off | Copyright, counterfeit, damages, iiNet, Internet, legal, piracy, privacy, Uncategorized | Permalink
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