Directories fight to go to High Court

Four Federal Court judges decided last year that the directories, published by Telstra's wholly owned advertising and directories arm, Sensis, were no longer covered by copyright because the collection, production and publishing processes are mostly computerised.

At risk of losing exclusive right to publish millions of directory listings, Telstra filed an application this week for special leave to appeal to the High Court to overturn the Federal Court's decision.

"Sensis maintains that this issue has far wider implications," a spokesman, Damian Glass, said yesterday. "Businesses in every sector throughout Australia should expect that the hard work of their employees and their investment in technology should not take away copyright protection."

Telstra says work done by Sensis staff contributes to authorship or a compilation, and that work brought into existence by a computer system can be copyrighted. The company says verifying, editing and arranging information, as well as maintaining information in computer systems makes the directories original literary works.

In 2007 Telstra and Sensis took action against Phone Directories Company for allegedly reproducing copyrighted information.

Last year Justice Michelle Gordon decided the information in phone directories was not protected by copyright because there was insufficient independent intellectual effort or "creative spark" involved in producing the directories.

Telstra's appeal of Justice Gordon's decision was unanimously rejected by three Federal Court judges in December, who agreed that collecting, editing and storing information did not qualify as authorship or a compilation.

A partner at DLA Phillips Fox, Scott Buchanan, said Telstra's appeal was likely to fail.

"This High Court has recently expressed a level of disdain towards allowing copyright to be used to protect informational work such as databases." Mr Buchanan said. "It is against this background I feel that Telstra is going to be unsuccessful."