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Optus Loses Second Battle In Aussie TV-Timeshifting Battle
beaverdownunder writes "After winning an initial legal battle to continue its mobile 'TV Now' terrestrial-television re-broadcasting service, Optus has lost a second battle in Australian Federal court. The Optus system 'time-shifted' broadcast signals by two minutes, and then streamed them to customers' mobile phones. In the previous ruling, the judge sided with Optus' argument that since the customer requested the service, they were the ones recording the signal, and thus it was fair-use under Australian copyright law. However, the new ruling declared Optus to be the true entity recording and re-distributing the broadcasts, and thus in violation of the law. There has been no word yet on whether Optus will appeal the decision, but as they could be retroactively liable for a great deal of damages, it is almost certain that they will."
I don't see how this lawsuit can be for any purpose other than to make money out of Optus. Two minutes is an incredibly short amount of time, and is not allowing the customer to re-watch their programs at a later point in time, or anything like that which could conceivably leave the copyright holders out of pocket.
If I pay for my own antenna, hook it up to a server, record everything it can possible pickup, and then retransmit it to myself would that be illegal? If it's not then why would me renting all the equipment to do that be illegal? It sounds like that's basically what you're doing when you use their service.
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
I couldn't find any videos of this Octopus fight. :(
Author of Enyo: Up and Running from O'Reilly Media
Is it sad that this sort of innovation is stifled? It sure is. Is it completely reasonable reading of the situation? I think so.
The ruling said nothing more than it was the company who designed and operated the system, including all of the equipment that was recording the signals, that was actually doing the recording, not the customer. There weren't even damages awarded.
The company said that since the customer started the process themselves, they were actually the ones that were making the recording.
As an analog, I see a vending machine with an illegal item. ...yeah.
Their argument:
The customer was legally responsible for the sale, because they were selling it to themselves; they put into motion the mechanical process for the machine to deliver it to them. The vending company, who simply provided the mechanical elements to facilitate the transaction between the manufacturer and the customer, and provided those mechanical elements with the product to sell, had nothing to do with what was actually being delivered.
Is there a more accurate legal analog that contradicts this? From my perspective, it does seem completely reasonable.
The Courtroom. Where great ideas go to die.
While I understand that the AFL and Telstra have a lot invested in the outcome of this... I don't understand how they're the ones bringing the case against Optus.
Optus is recording the Channel 7 feed in its entirety on behalf of the user - there is no dispute about this.
Apart from making Telstra's product worthless, what does this case have to do with them? Its not Telstra's content that Optus is recording - its Channel 's
Apart from making the AFL's deal with Telstra worthless, what does this case have to do with them? Again, its not the AFL's content that Optus is recording - its Channel 7's
So where is Channel 7 in all of this? Nowhere - they're getting their feed, including ads, distributed via the internet and, thus, reaching a wider audience - they'd be quite ok what that.
So how are the AFL and Telstra bringing a copyright case against Optus for content that isn't theirs?
This is a very interesting case. In Australia it is legal to record from the TV for personal use. Telstra has paid the Australian football federations a huge amount of money for the digital streaming rights for their content. Optus essentially side-stepped this by allowing individuals to use a hosted PVR to record the Free-to-Air transmission, and play it back on their mobile device.
... or, if someone uses a virtual server to steal my content - should I sue the end-user (who has no money), or the cloud provider (who will probably settle to avoid going to court)?
Telstra. the AFL and the NRL did a huge media campaign about how Optus was 'stealing' their content - but the first judge ruled it legal, and frankly - it's not Autralia's fault if our biggest Telco buys something for millions of dollars that turns out to be worth stuff-all (didn't stop them threatening to change the laws, because just like the argument for pokies - if the AFL and NRL can't sell these new media rights for millions of dollars, they'll go belly up and nobody in Australia will ever be able to watch the football again - even though football has existed for many years before new-media rights existed, and that there is considerable evidence to say that the more people who have access to watch a sport on TV are then more likely to go to a game - Telstra had millions of dollars at stake here!).
Optus's argument was that it is no different from someone doing the same thing with a PVR at home - which was protected under Australia's fair-use laws. The very interesting thing about this case is that the full bench of the federal court (the second highest court in the land) overruled the first judgement (which was: "Yes, it is the same, and it's not illegal") and said: 'Because Optus wrote the software that records the TV, because they host the servers and hardware, and without Optus's help, nothing would be recorded - the subscriber may _cause_ the recording to be created, but Optus are the ones that actually create it. Therefore, because it is Optus creating the recording, not the subscriber, you are not protected by our Domestic fair-use laws".
This is interesting because not last week the _exact same court_ upheld the rights for an ISP to not be responsible for their users' copyright infringements - but in this case they ruled that in the capacity of a cloud-hosting provider - they were responsible for their user's actions - because their server & software did the copying.
So now, in Australia it is legal to record from Free-to-air TV and stream it to your own mobile device as long as you own the hardware. It is legal to make the software that allows people to do that, and it is legal to sell hardware devices that let them do exactly that - but: If a company does _exactly the same thing_ as a hosted provider - it's illegal.
So, what does that mean if someone runs bit-torrent on a hosted virtual server that I provide?
So what are the users going to do?
This is again one of those cases where a great service is being offered, and some law (or at least the Aussie Federal Court's interpretation of it) stands in the way. Would it be such a stroke of genius for them to figure out that maybe the law should be changed? If Optus is smart, they can direct their customers anger in the right direction.
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
What, you mean someone offering a service they could be paying extra money for isn't hurting the copyright owners?
of course, that way everything is hurting them. even you not watching them.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Anybody thought that the 2 minute delay might be caused by buffers and recompression to bring it down to cellphone quality?
Next thing you know, buffering will be labeled as pirating ... :x