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."

Comments

Surely not harming the copyright holders?

[jbuk]

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.

Re:Surely not harming the copyright holders?

[FatLittleMonkey]

Way to go for reading comprehension. So you are trying to say that the pay tv right holder

Speaking of reading comprehension, feel free to find anything about pay-tv in TFS or TFA. Did you notice the part in TFS where it said "terrestrial-television"? In other words, the free-to-air channels. Or in TFA: "Optus began offering its customers the ability to record any free-to-air television program"

Optus played the role of a digital Freeview recorder for it's cellphone customers. It is merely allowing viewers to record and watch freely available TV channels, just as they are legally allowed to at home.

Re:Surely not harming the copyright holders?

[Internetuser1248]

Any monetary spoils are beside the point. This is just one battle in a bigger war. This is about controlling all distribution channels in order to maintain a hegemony, which is where the real money is...

Exactly, if optus are allowed to do this they can legally build a national service capable of delivering video to cellphones nationwide. Then they can start offering their own content which is not owned by any tv licence holder, while still reaching the mindless tv watcher zombies market. This would inevitably result in the public seeing perspectives and facts that have not been pre-approved by the Murdoch global media hegemony (well maybe not global, but in Australia it is 99.9% of media). Then people might find out how badly the establishment is fucking them in the ass and do something about it.

Like everything, it is about power not money.

Would this be illegal?

[wmbetts]

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.

Re:Would this be illegal?

[thegarbz]

If you record and re-transmit to yourself it's not illegal. If you however offer this service to someone else then you are in this legal grey area especially when it comes to licensing football broadcasts.