Welcome To Australia's No.1 Media Center Community!
You Are Currently Viewing As A Guest - you'll need to register in order to participate in our community and make this annoying message disappear!
By registering you'll be able to post & reply to questions, set up your own image gallery & blog, communicate privately with other members, create & respond to polls, access downloads and other "members only" features.
Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so why not join our community today - you'll be glad you did!
For any problems with the registration process or your account, please contact support.
Attention All Brisbane & Gold Coast Members!
Markc3012 has created a local user group for members living in Brisbane & the Gold Coast with the goal of creating a network of users to assist and support each other through information exchange and direct support.
Please see this post for more information and to join the group.
Three Federal Court judges ruled that IceTV did breach the Nine Network’s copyright in its weekly program guide.
The exact implication for IceTV will be decided when the matter is remitted to the primary Judge, Annabelle Bennett. However IceTV have been ordered to pay Nine’s costs which could run into millions. Nine are also seeking damages, although these will be hard to prove.
Judges Black, Lindgren and Sackville ruled that Judge Bennett had erred on several crucial points. The full judgment can be read here.
Re: Titanic Sinks Iceberg - "Judges ruled that IceTV did breach copyright?"
How sad! What kind of stupid laws do we have? Next thing, I'll be had for copyright if I tell someone that there is a good program on at a particular time and station.
Unfortunately, the law and common sense are not necessarily related.
I was intrigued by this bit:
Quote:
They decided that the creative skill that went into selecting which shows went to air at what time made the time and title section of the schedule very important.
Surely listing what was being shown on Nine was not copying this "skill" - if another TV station employed the same schedule that would be copying it, but just reporting it?
Re: Titanic Sinks Iceberg - "Judges ruled that IceTV did breach copyright?"
Indeed this is quite ludicrous. At some point, the data published in a work such as a TV guide has to be considered to be knowledge in the public domain. Not that that would permit copy/pasting of program descriptions for example - I don't know if Ice did that. If they did, then I guess there is a copyright case to be answered. As far as I can see, it becomes public knowledge that 'The Footy Show' is on nine at 9.30pm this Thursday once Nine publish that information. But if they publish a description saying for example 'Sam, Russell and their goofy pals, laugh it up again as they bring us the news on .... blah blah blah', then those particular words form a literary copyrightable work as far as I understand things. If Ice copied that kind of material, then they would seem to be guilty.
I suspect that this battle is not over though I don't know what level of appeal is still open to Ice.
Re: Titanic Sinks Iceberg - "Judges ruled that IceTV did breach copyright?"
I'm not surprised by the appeal at all, since the original verdict made it clear IceTV still must use a certain percentage of TV guide data from other sources, in order to provide a complete TV guide for the commercial TV networks.
Even if you take advantage of all the various sources (promos, TV news from forums/papers/web sites) for changes, and use custom descriptions (like IceTV), there is no way to produce a complete TV schedule. Another reference for TV Guide data must be used for a complete TV Guide, especially with frequent changes by commercial TV networks.
It is annoying that TV guide data from commercial TV networks is classified as copyrighted material though.
Re: Titanic Sinks Iceberg - "Judges ruled that IceTV did breach copyright?"
Quote:
Originally Posted by arkay
Yep.
Which is why I intend to sue anyone who has ever quoted my text in any post I've ever made. Text thieving bas^tards...
Cheers,
Arkay.
Couldn't resist
Anyway, what a sad day it is when stupidity driven by lawyers reaches this level. Damn it I'm move to the US where its s.. , OK China where its so.... , damn it, I'll stay - for a while.
__________________
Too many toys is still not enough.
Re: Titanic Sinks Iceberg - "Judges ruled that IceTV did breach copyright?"
Quote:
Originally Posted by logifuse
Exactly - I've written to Stephen Conroy (minister@dbcde.gov.au) about it, but I doubt any thing will happen.
Good idea, I sent the following email to him:
Quote:
Dear Minister Conroy,
I'm writing this email to you to express the immense frustration and disgust that I and many others are currently feeling over the outcome of today’s ICE TV vs Nine TV Guide Copyright case.
I am the owner of a PVR and a Microsoft Media Center PC who has been forced to resort to using the ICE TV Service to facilitate the recording of TV shows – I don’t object to paying for Ice’s Guide, what I do object to is the ridiculousness of the TV networks in Australia being able to claim copyright over what is essentially a collection of facts which should be public domain (like in every other country with TV broadcasters … yes, even in the USA).
The TV stations being allowed to claim copyright allows them to refuse to provide this information to interested parties unless they meet their excessive and draconian usage policies. Case in point; Australia is the only country in the world in which Microsoft is unable to supply an Electronic TV Guide to it’s Media Center customers because the TV stations don’t want people recording TV and potentially skipping their ads.
I implore you to introduce into law the following to fix FTA TV in Australia:
Mandate that all Digital TV Broadcasters provide an unencrypted, accurate, rolling 7 day EPG via the Australian EIT (part of our DVB-T standard) System.
Mandate that This EPG Data be supplied to any interested party that requests it without any re-transmission or usage restrictions (schedule info should be public domain).
Mandate that broadcasters stick to their published guide schedules – Currently the TV stations deliberately run over time by up to 15+ minutes in an attempt to keep viewers on their network. In the UK and Germany (and other countries) this sort behaviour is not tolerated.
Regards,
Derek
Im happy for folk to re-use any bits of this they like.
__________________
HT Media Center PC: Vista Home Premium, Athlon62 X2 4200+ 65w, GigaByte GA-MA770-DS3, Radeon HD4550 512MB, 2GB DDRII 800, 2x 400Gb HDD RAID0, Pioneer DVR-212BK SATA DVD Burner, 5x DNTV Live! HDTV Tuners, SilverStone LC17 HT Case & ICE Guide + WebGuide4.
Family Room: Xbox 360 Pro extender
Titanic Sinks Iceberg - "Judges ruled that IceTV did breach copyright?"
