Telstra loses phone book appeal

By Liz Tay on Dec 15, 2010 4:15 PM
Filed under Telco/ISP

Sensis data not eligible for copyright, Court finds.

Telstra's latest attempt to copyright information in its White Pages and Yellow Pages directories was rejected in the Federal Court this morning.

The telco had been attempting to have the directories treated as privately owned intellectual property since 5 April 2007. Both directories were published by Telstra subsidiary Sensis.

Federal Court Justice Patrick Keane today rejected Telstra's appeal to overturn a February 2010 ruling that directories published between 2000 and 2009 were not protected by copyright laws.

"None of the Works were original," Justice Michelle Gordon said when announcing her decision in February.

"I accept that production of the directories is a large enterprise populated by many contributors," she said. "However ... substantial labour and expense is not alone sufficient to establish originality."

Gordon asserted that the phone books were predominantly compiled by Sensis' retired CONDOR and Integrated Directory System software, and the Genesis computer system, which was introduced in 2003.

Although Genesis took more than five years to develop, costing more than $300 million, computer-aided creation of the directories required no "creative spark", nor "the exercise of the requisite skill and judgment", the Court found.

A Sensis spokesman told iTnews that it was disappointed that the appeal was dismissed, declining to comment on reasons for the directories to be copyrighted.

"We're obviously disappointed with the decision made in the Federal Court," he stated. "We will now spend some time reviewing the judgment and considering our options."

5 comments in this discussion

"The main point is that phone numbers are not created by Telstra / Sensis. You cannot simply put something in print and then claim the copyright on it."

By laman

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Comments: 5

deonast Dec 17, 2010 11:40 AM	Shame there wasn't a ruling like this years ago. I used to buy a phone disc product from a company called desktop marketing systems. Really handy reverse phone number searching, great for when you write down a number then can't remember what it was for. They got taken out by Telstra in the courts on copyright of phone number listings. The thing is telstra shouldn't have copyright over the phone listings, everyone is forced to list their number with telstra or they have to pay a fee to get a silent number. To me this is the worst kind of monopolistic behavior, but you don't see the ACCC going after then on this one.
anonymous Dec 17, 2010 2:44 PM	@deonast, you are right on both counts. Also, didn't one of the arguments used somewhere try to drag in the privacy laws to justify the corporate stance? And having to pay a big fee to have your number NOT published sounds like an absolute racket that needs to be stopped by the ACCC.
Tom Brown Dec 17, 2010 4:14 PM	Really my guess is that Sensis (Telstra) just wants to stifle competition with the multitude of online directories. I expect that attitude from Telstra as I have observed the same attitude over the years.
Francis Dec 17, 2010 5:50 PM	I Have sympathy for what everyone has written to-date. I have even used several CD's of phone numbers including one produced by Telstra. But on the other hand I would have sympathy for Telstra/Sensis in wishing to protect their contract to produce the directories. They have put in a lot of effort and cash producing the systems to compile these directories. At least two of the disks mentioned used sophisticated passwords to prevent their use by unregistered users or on more than one computer, though the Telstra disk did not. In fact I still have a copy cut and pasted on to one of my hard drives for convenience. On the competition front however I was informed that most of the others selling copies of directories simply sent hard copies of the phone book off to low cost places like India where they were retyped to get them back into electronic form to produce the CD's. If I were Telstra and I do not have a great deal of concern for them in their current form, I would be highly incensed if I had put a great deal of investment in the first place in to collating this data only to be ripped off by a backyard operation in a foreign country. Lets also be clear that Telstra or more correctly Sensis only produces these directories under licence for which they pay. Wouldn't you want to protect your investment under such conditions. Actually, ACMA or whoever sells them the licence for the directories should have a copyright or protection on the data to protect themselves and the licence holder to ensure the licence fee effectively goes back to the Federal Government.
laman Dec 20, 2010 8:34 AM	The main point is that phone numbers are not created by Telstra / Sensis. You cannot simply put something in print and then claim the copyright on it.