The Law Handbook 2024

736 Section 7: Consumers, contracts, the internet and copyright particularly if you intend to share the content you have downloaded. Music Rights Australia is an organisation that protects the creative interests of artists and provides information about legal music services and how to legally access and use digital music services. See www. musicrights.com.au Copying and sharing music online Copying and sharing digital content, such as music files, is relatively quick and easy. However, if you do copy and share music without the copyright owner’s permission, you are infringing copyright. Usually, the licence that accompanies the music you purchase outlines the details of what the copyright owner permits purchasers to do with the music file. Case examples: File sharing Universal Music Australia Pty Ltd v Sharman License Holdings Ltd [2005] FCA 1242 The case of Universal Music Australia Pty Ltd v Sharman License Holdings Ltd (2005) FCA 1242 involved a music label (Universal Music Australia) suing the developers and distributors (collectively referred to as ‘the Sharman parties’) of software that enabled access to Kazaa, a peer-to-peer file-sharing application. The software, which was free, enabled users to upload and download digital files (e.g. MP3 music files, videos and apps) to Kazaa. The essence of the litigation was the responsibility of the developers and distributors for authorising copyright infringement by providing the means (i.e. the software) by which users were able to infringe copyright by sharing copyright-protected works without permission. Based on what the Sharman parties knew was occurring on Kazaa, and their ability to put in place filters to reduce the amount of copyright infringing that was occurring, the court decided there had been authorisation. An appeal was heard, but the parties settled before the full Federal Court handed down a decision. Part of the settlement required substantial changes to be made to Kazaa. Roadshow Films Pty Ltd v iiNet Ltd (2012) 248 CLR 42; [2012] HCA 16 The High Court has dealt with another file-sharing case in Roadshow Films Pty Ltd v iiNet Ltd (2012) 248 CLR 42; [2012] HCA 16. The respondent, iiNet, is an ISP. A number of copyright owners alleged that iiNet was authorising the copyright infringement of films facilitated by peer-to-peer file-sharing software. The ISP had not refused access by terminating the relationship if access had been used unlawfully. Thus, the copyright owners claimed that that ISP had ‘countenanced’ the infringing activity. The argument was unsuccessful because the court found that the ‘authoriser’ (in this case the ISP) must have power to prevent the infringements. Dallas Buyers Club LLC v iiNet Ltd [2015] FCA 317 and Dallas Buyers Club LLC v iiNet Ltd (No 3) [2015] FCA 422 These cases relate to an application for pre-litigation discovery by the copyright owner of the film Dallas Buyers Club , seeking identification of various end users who may have downloaded or shared the film in breach of copyright. Importantly, the Federal Court granted an order that various ISPs had to provide identification details of certain end users for the purpose of prospective litigation by the copyright holder. The cases did not decide whether or not the acts of the ISPs or the end users did breach copyright but these cases demonstrate that user details can be obtained by copyright holders from ISPs where a copyright breach is strongly suspected. Case example: YouTube In the United States, a court ruled that YouTube was not liable for the copyright-infringing material posted on its website. The court ruled that YouTube only has a duty to remove infringing material when it has knowledge of specific infringing material. Equivalent Australian legislation (i.e. the safe harbour provisions of the Copyright Act) means that copyright owners should promptly inform any website if it contains material that infringes copyright. Podcasting ‘Podcasting’ means to deliver a digital audio file (e.g. a radio program) over the internet as a file to be stored and played on a computer or MP3 player. If you wish to create a podcast (i.e. make audio material available online for others to download), then the content you use must not infringe copyright. Infringement occurs if you use audio content that