MONDAY 8th February 2010

Questions of copyright dominate this week's Australian Music News as two landmark cases receive judgements. ISP iiNet was cleared of all wrongdoing by Justice Dennis Cowdroy who rejected claims by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) that iiNet "authorised" copyright infringement by failing to act on AFACT's infringement notices. Justice Cowdroy found that iiNet did not have control over customers use of BitTorrent file-sharing software, saying: "the law recognises no positive obligation on any person to protect the copyright of another". AFACT represents 34 copyright holders in the motion picture industry including Village Roadshow and Twentieth Century Fox International. Sabiene Heindl, general manager of Music Industry Piracy Investigations said in response to the ruling: "copyright owners broadly may have no choice but to sue individuals for illegal file-sharing". Also in the Federal Court, Justice Peter Jacobson found that recordings of Men At Work's iconic song Down Under reproduced a substantial part of the children's folk tune Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree, ruling in favour of infringement claims made by copyright holder Larrikin Music Publishing. Kookaburra was written in 1934 by Marion Sinclair for a Girl Guides competition. Men At Work's Colin Hay and music publisher EMI intend to fight the ruling... A group called S.L.A.M., Save Live Australian Music, are encouraging Melbournites  to protest the against the Victorian state government's perceived lack of support for the live music industry. Protests will occur on February 23 to coincide with the 34th anniversary of the filming of AC/DC's It's a Long Way to the Top video clip on Swanston Street.

For more stories, check out the Australian Music News Bulletin.