Race Fields Are Still Odds-On In The Copyright Game

Key Points:
The High Court's recent decision suggests an important shift in the degree to which copyright protects compilations such as sporting fixtures and race fields.

Sporting organisations rely on the licensing of copyright in race fields and fixtures to provide an important source of revenue. This raises the contentious issue of whether compilations of facts such as telephone directories, race fields, sporting fixtures and program guides are protected by Australian copyright law (and therefore whether third parties need a licence to copy them or whether they can freely do so). On the one hand, copyright law does not protect mere facts or information. On the other hand, the Copyright Act makes it clear that copyright can subsist in compilations.