AFACT to Appeal Copyright Case to High Court
14 September 2012
The film companies that brought a case against iiNet for failing to take steps to prevent known repeat copyright infringement by its users on its network will seek leave to appeal to the High Court.
Despite being successful on many grounds in their appeal to the Full Federal Court, the film companies will seek to overturn the ruling that iiNet did not authorize the acts of infringement that it knew occurred on its internet service.
“The Full Federal Court unanimously found that iiNet had the power to prevent the infringements of its users from occurring and that there were reasonable steps it could have taken, including issuing warnings,” said Neil Gane, executive director of AFACT, the group representing the film companies.
“However, two judges of the Full Court went on to find that iiNet had not authorized the infringements of its users and that is what we are appealing,” he said. “We say they did not apply the legal test for authorization correctly.”
iiNet chief executive officer Michael Malone says a genuine whole-ofindustry discussion and approach is needed to make content legitimately available online and to tackle illegal downloads.
Malone said given the significance of the issues involved he was not surprised the High Court had decided to review the case.
“Nevertheless, I know the internet industry is eager to work with the film industry and copyright holders to develop a workable solution,” he said. “We remain committed to developing an industry solution that sees more content readily and cheaply available online as well as a sensible model for dealing with repeated copyright infringement activity.”
Prior to the case, iiNet was provided with substantial evidence of copyright infringement by users on its network, which iiNet accepted was 100% accurate. The trial judge found that iiNet knew the infringements were taking place and would continue. He also found that iiNet had no intention of acting upon the notifications of infringement regardless of the information provided by the studios, according to an AFACT statement.
“On appeal, iiNet did not challenge the findings of the trial judge that they knew the infringements were taking place, yet two of the judges of the Full Court re-opened the issue of iiNet’s knowledge. We will argue that the Court’s approach in this regard was incorrect,” Gane said.
