Optus ‘TV Now’ appeal rejected
Updated: The High Court has denied Optus leave to appeal its TV Now copyright case, ending the legal battle against the AFL, NRL and Telstra.
- Published by David Knox
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The High Court has denied Optus leave to appeal its TV Now copyright case, ending the legal battle against the AFL, NRL and Telstra.
The Optus TV Now service was broadcasting recorded football games on hand-held devices such as iPads and iPhones, just minutes after being broadcast on free-to-air television.
The sporting bodies and Telstra took Optus to court arguing that TV Now breached their exclusive rights deals.
In April the Federal Court of Appeal ruled against Optus, finding that it was the subscriber who actually chooses to stream broadcast events and that the action is similar to using a video cassette recorder to copy television.
Telstra has exclusive internet broadcast rights for the AFL until 2016 and for NRL until the end of this year.
Optus stopped the TV Now service when it lost the Federal Court case.
Update: Optus has announced it will shut down TV Now service after the High Court threw out its bid to appeal.
Source: The Age
2 Responses
Someone else will work out how to stream it from some website in Russia!!
US caselaw says you need an individual tuner and an individual copy of the timeshifted material per user. I guess Optus doesn’t consider this approach economical or at least isn’t willing to try it only to potentially have it declared unlawful too.