Congratulations IceTV for beating Nein!!!!!

[dJOS]

Fantastic win against the evil predatory & anti-competetive Nein organisation.  ;D

For those not wanting to read the entire verdict, Pete from the DTV Forums has produced this excellent summary:

Copyright legislation strikes a balance of competing interests and competing policy considerations[15]. Relevantly, it is concerned with rewarding authors of original literary works with commercial benefits having regard to the fact that literary works in turn benefit the reading public.

Copyright does not protect facts or information. Copyright protects the particular form of expression of the information. That facts are not protected is a crucial part of the balancing of competing policy considerations in copyright legislation

In 'brief':

Nine argued their EPG database was copyright protected. ICE agreed that it was from the outset, so no judgment has been made as to Nine's claim (as its irrelevant)

Nine also had no problems with ICE watching TV for 4 weeks and then extrapolating out future shows for their EPG.

The issue boiled down to when ICE having predicted 97% of the next weeks programming, used Nine's own guide to fix up the last 3% (say for a new premiere event)

Nine argued that this 3% represented a 'substantial part' of their EPG document. The court agreed that it is necessary to consider not only the extent of what is copied but also the quality of what is copied is critical.

Nine also argued that the 'systemic' copying covered a large period of time, but the court decided each weekly EPG was a seperate document and the merits of Nine's case could be decided on a single week's publication.

The court found that the form of time and title information as published was not 'original' enough to enable it to constitute a substantial part of the EPG. Essentially title was something provided by the shows makers not the broadcaster and time could only ever be expressed in a time format. <= This finding essentially awarded the case to ICETV.

Nine also argued that the decision making process that lead to a certain show airing at a certain time was a big part of the creative process. This was a very wide ranging interpretation of copyright law and having been previously held as correct was IMO probably the reason the High Court acted to revist this case. As they mention

The error is of a kind which might enable copyright law to be employed to achieve anti-competitive behaviour of a sort not contemplated by the balance struck in the Act between the rights of authors and the entitlements of the reading public.

The court agreed that Nine expanded considerable effort and skill creating their schedule, however they found that the level of skill and labour required to express the time and title information was minimal. It is the expression of this information that is the subject not the fact of it.

The High Court found fully in favour of ICETV as nothing substatial was ever copied. We can anticipate no more "N/A Channel Nine" entries. Yay ICE and well done  :)

[philzgr8]

Hear Hear. It will be nice to get some real program data again after having to put up with very sparse info. Congratulations Ice on a fight well fought... Oh and Nein.... Suck S^&t

[dJOS]

Hear Hear. It will be nice to get some real program data again after having to put up with very sparse info. Congratulations Ice on a fight well fought... Oh and Nein.... Suck S^&t

Lol, Nein have to pay all costs too!  ;D

I hope IceTV sues for damages!!!

[tonymy01]

Oh dear, I think my PVR HDD will need upgrading, I haven't watched a show on Nine for about 8 months now, as I never knew what was on.   Way to go shooting yourself in the foot Nine, thankfully common sense prevails.

[mtb]

Congratulations IceTV, an excellent result.  Not that I expect to record much more, since the Nein content is usually cr@p, but it will be nice to catch the occasional one-offs again.

Now perhaps the FreeView consortium will see some sense and come to a formal arrangement for the transfer of data?

[kidhazy]

Well done IceTV - great stuff.

[dJOS]

Peter Vogel has his Summary on his Blog:

The High Court has ruled that the electronic program guide created by IceTV does not infringe Nine Networks’ copyright.

The full judgment of French CJ,Gummow, Hayne, Heydon, Crennan and Kiefel JJ (73 pages) is available here.

In summary, the court found that, in terms of the Copyright Act,  IceTV did not copy a “substantial” part of Nine’s weekly schedule.

The judgment notes that IceTV did not copy any of the broadcasters’ program synopses, and that:

IceTV’s synopses had a different commercial purpose from that of Nine, as evidenced by the use of humour or criticism.  For example, the IceGuide synopsis for the Nine programme The Footy Show (AFL) on 28 September 2006 read
“From the Rod Laver Arena comes this extra long torture session.  Apologies for not bringing you the ‘entertainment’ line up, it’s not through lack of research.  Unfortunately, the only way to have truly known was to be watching The Footy Show last week and frankly, not for love or money will the IceMan do that.  So, those of you who enjoy the ‘humour’ and baffling ego inflation.  Enjoy.”

Having found that  IceTV did not copy a substantial part, it was not necessary for the Court to conside the issue of “indirect copying” which was one of the main reasons previously given for the contrary finding in the Federal Court of Appeal. I discuss that subject in an earlier post.

I was pleased to see the Court took into account the balance between the public interest issues of this case.  They said:
“The Full Court approached the issue of substantiality at too high a level of abstraction, and in doing so tipped the balance too far against the interest of viewers of digital free to air television in the dissemination by means of new technology of programme listings.  The Full Court did so by treating the issue of substantiality as dominated by an “interest” in the protection of Nine against perceived competition by Ice.”

The history of this litigation is explored further in this category of our blog. It has its roots with my idea, back in 1988, that an electronic program guide could be used to overcome the difficulty people were then having setting their VCRs to record the correct program. When I approached the TV networks to buy their data, they said they would not sell it for that use. When I came up with the idea of creating an EPG independently, without breaching copyright, TV industry representatives said “we’ll sue you”.

The rest is history.

Peter Vogel (Shareholder but no longer employed by IceTV)

[bruiser333]

Oh, the irony...

http://www.smarthouse.com.au/Content_And_Downloads/Industry/R7A6K3X3

::)

[brianh]

Sweet, sweet ICE - "Yes waiter, I'll have that *WITH* ICE".......... 

It is sooooo good to see Nine's case end up "on the rocks", so to speak... :)



Congratulations to all at Ice TV!!

[mcretan]

Wooooot!. ;D ;D ;D

That's Brilliant.  Congrats Ice. 

[kayleneo]

Curious that nine was arguing that there was much skill involved in setting the program guide when my experience is that the times are more of a guideline to rough approximations of when shows may start and finish.  If carpenters showed as much skill in building houses, none would pass the building inspector!

[gleff]

This is definately great news.. congrats ICETV.

[pszilard]

EXCELLENT!!!

Well done IceTV. We can finally get on with enjoying programs that are paid for by the advertisers and not the Nein network!

It was worth the slog. I wish IceTV every success for the future.  ;)

[MrFlibbles]

Congrats IceTV! Well deserved :)

[csutak40]

Talk about David vs. Goliath!  Congratulations from me too!