IceTV Pty Limited v Nine Network Australia Pty Limited [2009]
I set out to write a ‘brief’ casenote on my blog on this case a week ago, but almost inevitably it’s morphing into a 5,000 word paper. To spare my readers the pain of waiting a month to read something gargantuan, I’m posting up this condensed note. I’ll upload the full note as a document in due season.
On 22 April 2009, the High Court of Australia delivered its judgment in the case of IceTv Pty Limited v Nine Network Australia Pty Limited [2009] HCA 14 (hereafter “IceTV“. The appeal by IceTV Pty Limited (“IceTV“) was upheld unanimously by a court comprising French CJ, Gummow, Hayne, Heydon, Crennan and Kiefel JJ. The court found that IceTV’s use of program title and time information originating from Nine Network Australia Pty Limited (“Nine“) did not infringe Nine’s copyright in its published programming schedules.
Significance of the case
The IceTV case has been a running saga in Australian copyright law for several years. The case is significant for several reasons. First, it is an important indication of the present High Court’s views on several open issues of copyright law which have been in flux in recent years. The bench which sat on IceTV encompass all but one (Bell J) of the present court, which has changed significantly in the last couple of years. Specifically, the case was a decisive statement of the court’s view on copyright’s protection of labour and time, versus the need for a “creative spark”, in compilations, an issue with increasing ramifications in the digital age. While the case considered this issue in the context of copyright infringement, and specifically the question of what constitutes a “substantial part” of a work, their Honours provided a strong indication of their views of the parallel issue in the context of subsistence of copyright.
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