Appeal To The High Court
On 24 March 2011, AFACT announced that it had sought leave to appeal the Full Court's verdict to the High Court of Australia. The application for special leave was approved and the hearing was held from 30 November to 2 December 2011.
The appeal addressed whether the Full Federal Court deviated in its application of the principles of authorisation and subsequently, whether the finding that iiNet did not authorise its users' copyright infringements is incorrect. The appeal also focused on whether the Full Court erred in its treatment of the amount of knowledge iiNet required to know before infringement could be validated.
In a judgment on 20 April 2012, the High Court unanimously dismissed AFACT's appeal and ordered AFACT to pay costs, with iiNet's gross legal expenses said to be approximately $9 million. The High Court confirmed the Federal Court Full Bench decision affirming the first instance decision of Cowdroy, though not supporting all his reasons. The court held that "... it could not be inferred from iiNet's inactivity after receiving the AFACT notices that iiNet had authorised any act of infringement of copyright in the appellants' films by its customers."
The appellants, having failed three times, are widely expected to lobby for legislative changes to the Copyright Act 1968 to reverse the effect of this ruling.
Read more about this topic: Roadshow Films V Ii Net
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