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ARTICLE · 14 JULY 2015

Winter is coming, but probably not for online copyright pirates

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This new legal remedy against online sites for "facilitating" copyright infringement has broad and indeterminate scope.

AustraliaIntellectual Property
Mark Vincent
Mark Vincent
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The Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2015, introduced into parliament by Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull in March 2015 to curb online piracy of film and TV shows, passed with the Coalition and Labor's support 37-13. The law amends the Copyright Act and allows content owners to apply to the Federal Court for an injunction blocking an "online location outside Australia" which has a "primary purpose" of "facilitating" copyright infringement.

Unlike the test in Australian law for "authorizing" copyright infringement which is a known quantity, with a long history before our courts, this new remedy against online sites for "facilitating" infringement has broad and indeterminate scope. It is possible that these "facilitators" of infringement would not be held to infringe copyright under current Australian law. An example of such a "facilitator" may be a provider of a VPN service allowing Australians direct internet access to foreign

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