Sydney Morning Herald | January 13, 2011 | Lucy Battersby
TELSTRA will take its fight to keep copyright over the Yellow Pages and White Pages to the High Court to protect its lucrative Sensis business.
Last year four Federal Court judges decided the directories were no longer covered by copyright because the collection, production and publishing processes are mostly computerised.
Telstra, at risk of losing the exclusive right to publish millions of directory listings, this week filed an application for special leave to appeal to the High Court.Â
“Sensis maintains that this issue has far wider implications,” spokesman Damian Glass said yesterday. ”We believe it is important to consider all of the legal options available, including an appeal to the High Court.”
Telstra and its subsidiary, Sensis, argue that 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 application argues that verifying, editing and arranging information, as well as maintaining information in computer systems, makes the directories original literary works.
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