More FCA news: iiNet appeal and Phone Directories

Roadshow v iiNet [2010] FCA 24

As was predicted, the iiNet decision has been appealed by the AFACT posse of copyright holders that tried to nab ISPs for authorising copyright infringement by failing to prevent their users from downloading copyrighted works. I have been enjoying nic.suzor's commentary on the decision (see eg), and now Peter Black's Freedom to Differ has the Notice of Appeal, which is unsurprisingly comprehensive in its allegations of errors by Cowdroy J. Despite the suggestion of one commenter on Black's post, I am still willing to go out on a limb and say that the High Court will definitely pick this up regardless of how thoughtful and circumspect the Full Court reasons are.

Telstra v Phone Directories Co [2010] FCA 44

While I am off topic and on to the Federal Court... Most people would by now have heard of the decision of Telstra v Phone Directories Co. The case considered the degree to which copyright may subsist in a compilation (in this case, the names and numbers in the Yellow and White Pages). Importantly, the case further undermined the application and relevance of the Full Federal Court's decision in Desktop Marketing v Telstra (which found copyright to subsist in certain White and Yellow Pages editions), since the High Court's decision last year in IceTV. It now appears that Copyright does not subsist in the White and Yellow Pages' compilation of a phone number and name data set. There's a good case note of the decision at Octavianet.