Australian Federal Court Awards Damages To Artist For False Copyright Claim

Posted by Soulskill on Friday March 30, 2012 @02:08AM from the it's-a-start dept.

New submitter BarryHaworth writes "In a decision handed down earlier this month, the Australian Federal Court awarded damages to Aboriginal artist Richard Bell over a false claim of copyright infringement. The claim related to a take-down notice claiming copyright infringement from film footage used in a trailer for a film being made by the artist. The court declared Mr. Bell the owner of the copyright and awarded him $147,000 in damages for lost sales of paintings and catalogues. At time of writing, YouTube does not appear to have caught up with the decision."

1 of 77 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

So let me get this straight... by xyourfacekillerx · 2012-03-30 02:30 · Score: 0, Troll

... Show of hands. How many of you think it's OK for a single artist to pursue getting money over a copyright dispute, i.e. collecting money for "lost sales" and due to misappropriation of the artists' material (which is what happened here)? Now how many of you think it's wrong for a GROUP of people, say, a record label, or a group of record labels, to seek the same monetary compensation for misappropriation of material they own? Huh....