Laws and Regulations under TRIPS Art. 63.2 - View details of the document

Australia
Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Act 2018
The Act amends the online copyright infringement scheme in section 115A of the Copyright Act 1968, which is aimed at allowing the Federal Court of Australia to issue injunctions requiring the blocking of access by users in Australia to overseas online locations that facilitate large-scale infringement of copyright. The Act amends the scope of the previous scheme by: • providing that an injunction may be granted in respect of an online location that has ‘the primary purpose or the primary effect’ of infringing, or facilitating an infringement, of copyright (whether or not in Australia); • including a rebuttable presumption that the online location is outside Australia, to reduce the evidentiary burden on copyright owners; • enabling copyright owners to seek injunctions requiring online search engine providers to take such steps as the Court considers reasonable so as not to provide search results that refer users to online locations blocked under the scheme (the scheme previous only applied to internet service providers); • clarifying that the Federal Court may grant injunctions in terms that allow: o the copyright owner and carriage service provider, by agreement, to apply the injunction to block other domain names, URLs and IP addresses that start to provide access to the online location after the injunction is made; o the copyright owner and online search engine provider, by agreement, to apply the injunction to not provide search results that include domain names, URLs and IP addresses that start to provide access to the online location after the injunction is made; and • enabling the Minister, by legislative instrument, to declare that particular online search engine providers, or classes of online search engine providers, be exempt from the scheme.
The Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Act 2018 is also available at: https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2018A00157
Department of Communications and the Arts GPO Box 2154 Canberra, ACT 2601 Australia Telephone: +61 2 6271 1000