IceTV slays Nine in High Court EPG victory: update

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 22 April 2009 10:47

Business IT - Technology

Small Australian electronic TV guide provider IceTV has won a historic 'David versus Goliath' victory over one of the country's media giants. IceTV has won the TV program guide copyright case brought by the Nine Network three years ago. Details of the court's decision have now been published.

The High Court ruled in IceTV's favour this morning, bringing to a close a case that's been dragging on for three years. Costs were awarded to IceTV.

Nine had alleged that the process IceTV used to generate its EPG infringed on Nine's copyrighted weekly schedule.

IceTV conceded that copyright did subsist in the weekly schedules, but the court held that there was no reproduction of a substantial part of those schedules.

The court also reiterated the concept that "Copyright does not protect facts or information. Copyright protects the particular form of expression of the information, namely the words, figures and symbols in which the pieces of information are expressed, and the selection and arrangement of that information."

Furthermore, "Copyright, being an exception to the law's general abhorrence of monopolies, does not confer a monopoly on facts or information because to do so would impede the reading public's access to and use of facts and information."

When the judges looked at the content of Nine's weekly schedule, they found that the time and title information was not a form of expression which required particular mental effort or exertion.

What was their reasoning? See page 2.