The Liability of 'Passive' Content Hosts for Third-Party Content Under Australian Copyright Law

The richness of the internet owes much to the diversity of its content, the hosting of which is made possible by content hosts. Yet, not all that is diverse is legal. Given that copyright subsists in creative content, the digitization of content has made its duplication, adaptation and publication on the internet extremely easy — resulting in a substantial proportion of illegal content infringing copyright. In the circumstances, copyright owners have increasingly turned to internet intermediaries, including content hosts, to protect their rights on the internet. While the provisions in the Copyright Act 1968 (CTH) that impute liability for authorizing another’s infringement provides the basis for the liability of content hosts for hosting third-party content that infringe copyright, the various defenses and safe harbor provisions available therein do not provide any “additional” protection to content hosts. This may have implications in the way content hosts operate, undermining fair use and free speech doctrines