Walter v Lane [1900] AC 539, was a judgement of the House of Lords on the question of Authorship under the Copyright Act 1842. It has come to be recognised as a seminal case on the notion of originality in copyright law and has been upheld as an early example of the sweat of the brow doctrine.
A database right is a sui generis property right, comparable to but distinct from copyright, that exists to recognise the investment that is made in compiling a database, even when this does not involve the "creative" aspect that is reflected by copyright. Such rights are often referred to in the plural: database rights.
Originality is the aspect of created or invented works that distinguish them from reproductions, clones, forgeries, or substantially derivative works. The modern idea of originality is according to some scholars tied to Romanticism, by a notion that is often called romantic originality. The validity of "originality" as an operational concept has been questioned. For example, there is no clear boundary between "derivative" and "inspired by" or "in the tradition of."
The threshold of originality is a concept in copyright law that is used to assess whether a particular work can be copyrighted. It is used to distinguish works that are sufficiently original to warrant copyright protection from those that are not. In this context, "originality" refers to "coming from someone as the originator/author", rather than "never having occurred or existed before".
A reverse telephone directory is a collection of telephone numbers and associated customer details. However, unlike a standard telephone directory, where the user uses customer's details in order to retrieve the telephone number of that person or business, a reverse telephone directory allows users to search by a telephone service number in order to retrieve the customer details for that service.
Telstra Corporation Limited v Desktop Marketing Systems Pty Ltd is a 2001 decision of the Federal Court of Australia related to the originality required to attract copyright protection. Heard before Justice Finkelstein in June 2000, the case concerned the release of a product called "Phonedisc" created by the Respondents, Desktop Marketing Systems.
Sweat of the brow is an intellectual property law doctrine that is chiefly related to copyright law. According to this doctrine, an author gains rights through simple diligence during the creation of a work, such as a database, or a directory. Substantial creativity or "originality" is not required.
Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991), was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States establishing that information alone without a minimum of original creativity cannot be protected by copyright. In the case appealed, Feist had copied information from Rural's telephone listings to include in its own, after Rural had refused to license the information. Rural sued for copyright infringement. The Court ruled that information contained in Rural's phone directory was not copyrightable and that therefore no infringement existed.
Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp., 36 F. Supp. 2d 191, was a decision by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, which ruled that exact photographic copies of public domain images could not be protected by copyright in the United States because the copies lack originality. Even though accurate reproductions might require a great deal of skill, experience and effort, the key element to determine whether a work is copyrightable under US law is originality.
The copyright law of Australia defines the legally enforceable rights of creators of creative and artistic works under Australian law. The scope of copyright in Australia is defined in the Copyright Act 1968, which applies the national law throughout Australia. Designs may be covered by the Copyright Act as well as by the Design Act. Since 2007, performers have moral rights in recordings of their work.
Roadshow Films Pty Ltd & others v iiNet Ltd was a case in the Federal and High Courts of Australia between members of the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) and other movie and television studios and iiNet, Australia's second-largest Internet service provider (ISP). The alliance of 34 companies unsuccessfully claimed that iiNet authorised primary copyright infringement by failing to take reasonable steps to prevent its customers from downloading and sharing infringing copies of films and television programs using BitTorrent.
The Australian Digital Alliance (ADA) is an Australian non-profit coalition of public and private sector interests, formed to promote balanced copyright law by providing a voice for the public interest perspective in debates about copyright change and reform. The ADA engages with government through submissions, lobbying, and media activities.
Stevens v Kabushiki Kaisha Sony Computer Entertainment, was a decision of the High Court of Australia concerning the "anti-circumvention" provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. The appellant, Stevens, had sold and installed modchips that circumvented the Sony PlayStation's copy protection mechanism. Sony argued that Stevens had knowingly sold or distributed a "circumvention device" which was capable of circumventing a "technological protection measure", contrary to s 116A of the Copyright Act.
Peter Vogel is an Australian inventor and technologist known for developing the Fairlight CMI.
IceTV is an Australian company providing an independently curated Electronic Program Guide (EPG) for digital free-to-air television. It also produces Smart Recording Software.
Susan Coralie Kenny AM is a Judge of the Federal Court of Australia, and formerly a Judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria, where she was the first woman to serve on the Court of Appeal.
Delrina Corporation v. Triolet Systems Inc, 2002 CanLII 11389, 58 OR (3d) 339, also known as Delrina II, is a 2002 Ontario Court of Appeal case which established the existence of the merger doctrine in Canadian copyright law. The plaintiff, Delrina Corp., sued Triolet Systems Inc. and Brian Duncombe for infringing its copyright of the computer program Sysview by designing similar software, called Assess. The plaintiffs were awarded an interlocutory injunction but ultimately lost at trial. Delrina Corp.’s appeal to the Ontario Court of Appeal was dismissed.
Designer Guild Limited v. Russell Williams (Textiles) Limited, is a leading House of Lords case on what constitutes copying in copyright infringement cases. The House of Lords considered whether there was infringement of a fabric design. Although both the copyrighted work and the infringing design were different in detail, the overall impression of the designs was the same. This decision is significant because the House of Lords ruled that copyright infringement is dependent on whether the defendant copied a substantial portion of the original work, rather than whether the two works look the same. The outcome suggests that in the United Kingdom the overall impression of a copyrighted work is protected if the copied features involved the labour, skill and originality of the author's work, even if the copyrighted work and infringing work are different in detail.
Milpurrurru v Indofurn Pty Ltd was one of three Federal Court of Australia judgments in the 1990s involving the use of copyright law in Australia relating to Indigenous cultural and intellectual property (ICIP), the others being Yumbulul v Reserve Bank of Australia (1991) and Bulun Bulun v R & T Textiles (1998), or "T-shirts case".
