Review of online service provider liabilities


The Attorney General's Department is conducting a review of Division 2AA of Part V of the Copyright Act 1968 - the limitations on remedies against carriage service providers introduced on 1 January 2005 (i.e., this year!) as part of the implementation of the US Free Trade Agreement.

In its present form, this division provides limited relief from some remedies for copyright infringement, but only to "carriage service providers".

There appears to be a concern, or at least a question whether there should be a concern, that this limits the remedies just to those who provide internet access and not to a range of online service providers who, if they were located in the parts of the world which own most of the copyright, would also have the benefit of similar limitations. These might include educational institutions that provide internet access to staff and students, operators of search engines and, eek, bloggers.

The review could be quite important as, apart possibly from Telstra's lawyers and those of Optus, there may be considerable doubt that anyone knows what a "carriage service provider" is. The Copyright Act in s 10 helpfully says it has the same meaning as in the Telecommunications Act. The definition in the Telecommunications Act is found in s 87. Should you ever be suffering from insomnia (or wish to experience what 60s pop stars went through when they were 'tripping'), you try reading it.

And, if that doesn't supply an elephant's sufficiency, there is even more diversion to be found in Foxtel Management v ACCC [2000] FCA 1161.

Submissions should be in by 10 October 2005. You will have to write to copyrightlawbranch@ag.gov.au to ask for a copy of the issues paper.

Posted: Tuesday - 30 August, 2005 at 03:08 PM         |

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