Australian Federal Court follows Tuusula’s lead

Not literally (of course) but the outcome is quite same – pure linking was found to cause secondary liability. Kim Weatherall’s most excellent copyright blog reports:

in this case, the Full Federal Court had to consider whether a website, structured and designed both to provide links to infringing MP3 files, and to provide facilities for the easy, automatic upload of such links, could lead to liability for authorising infringement of copyright for the website designer (Cooper), and the hosting ISP (E-Talk)… At first instance, Tamberlin J held both liable …in this judgment, the Full Federal Court has pretty much affirmed the reasoning of the Trial Judge. Overall, I find the reasoning pretty troubling in this case: particularly the reasoning of Branson J, which seems to me to endorse a broader view of appropriate liability than the other judgment of Kenny J…

The full decision is here. One interesting difference to the Finnish cases is that in Australia ISP’s don’t have safe harbor-protection against copyright infringements and here the hosting ISP was also found liable.