David Bushby: We're speaking with John
Fairbairn, a partner in the Intellectual Property Group at
Clayton Utz in Sydney. A warm welcome to Boardroom Radio John.
Yesterday we saw
the Full Federal Court hand down its long-awaited decision in the
iiNet case for intellectual property infringement brought by film
studios. What was the outcome?
John Fairbairn: Well in a 2:1 decision (there
were three judges) iiNet won. The Full Court in effect agreed
that iiNet was not liable for the copyright infringement of its
users but its victory was
not as absolute as it was at first instance.
David Bushby: So what were the key findings in
this one?
John Fairbairn: I think there were probably
four elements to it. The first is there is no absolute
defence for ISPs to allegations of copyright infringement. The
reasoning at first instance was that ISPs didn't provide the
means of infringement, they merely provided access to the internet;
the Full Court rejected that
