The HAMC Membership Card
19 The applicant contends that notwithstanding that it failed to establish its claims of copyright infringement, it nevertheless substantially succeeded on the copyright claims because the suit based on the HAMC Membership Card was a complicated matter which involved many steps along the way to success almost all of which were made good by the applicant, but for being able to establish the vesting of legal title to the copyright in the work in suit in HAMC US. The applicant says that Redbubble contested many of the elements of the copyright case that could and should have been conceded. It says that Redbubble contested and failed to succeed on issues arising under ss 29, 34(1) and 34(2) of the Copyright Act (publication and whether the author was generally known or able to be ascertained by reasonable inquiry); Redbubble unsuccessfully contested the applicant's standing to bring the proceeding as the exclusive licensee of HAMC; Redbubble unsuccessfully contested the notion that if the artist was a primary infringer, Redbubble, having regard to its business model, was engaged in authorisation of infringements by the artist (a question examined on the facts notwithstanding the finding on ownership); Redbubble unsuccessfully challenged the acts of infringement relied upon by the applicant (again on the assumption as to a finding of ownership).
20 The applicant's point in relation to these various matters is that many of these questions on which Redbubble was unsuccessful need not have been put in issue and could have been conceded saving time and cost, simply leaving extant the real question of whether HAMC US had "got in" title to the work authored by "Sundown", Mr Robert D. Kestner (also sometimes spelt "Kistner"), by securing a sequence of assignments in writing ultimately vesting the legal title to the work in suit in the entity from which the applicant derived its standing to sue.
21 The applicant says that these matters remain relevant to the question of costs notwithstanding that ultimately the applicant was unsuccessful on the claim.
22 As to the question of ownership of the work in suit, there are two aspects of the ownership question that need to be mentioned. The first is the applicant's failure to make good a sequence of written assignments ultimately vesting the legal title to the copyright in the 1954 work in HAMC US. The second concerns the applicant's reliance upon a United States Copyright Office registration of that work.
23 By its second further amended reply ("SFAR") to Redbubble's second further amended defence, the applicant denied Redbubble's contention that the United States Copyright Office registration of the work constituting the image on the HAMC Membership Card (visual work number: VAu001214935), did not constitute proof of ownership of the copyright in HAMC US. The applicant said that it was entitled to rely on the presumption of ownership in s 126B(3) of the Copyright Act: see para 7(b) of the SFAR. The applicant also said that it was entitled to rely on s 126B(5) or, in the alternative, s 126B(6) of the Copyright Act having regard to a number of factual matters at para 7(c)(i) to (vi) of the SFAR.
24 However, by letter dated 18 September 2017 (Exhibit 14), the applicant's solicitor gave notice to Redbubble that the applicant no longer relied upon para 7(b) of the SFAR and thus reliance upon s 126B(3) fell away. By force of that concession, s 126B(5) also fell away (because s 126B(3) did not apply; see s 126B(5)(a)). Section 126B(6) remained alive up to the date of trial as a matter of pleading only. In any event, it rested upon the sequence of factual matters being made good as pleaded at para 7(c)(i) to (vi) and none of those matters resulted in any assignments in writing vesting ownership in HAMC US. More fundamentally, at the trial the applicant did not rely upon the United States Copyright Office registration at all. The applicant, in its costs submissions, notes the observation in the principal judgment that HAMC Aust did not rely at trial upon, as proof of ownership, registration of the image entitled "Hells Angels Membership Card (1954)", with the United States Copyright Office. No reliance was placed on the United States Copyright Office registration at trial and no reliance was placed on it as a "document" engaging s 126B(6). Again, Redbubble says that any reliance on the registration was abandoned.
25 The applicant, however, says that submissions were ordered to be put on concerning a decision of the Federal Court of Australia, Pokémon Company International, Inc. v Redbubble Ltd (2017) 351 ALR 676 ("Pokémon"), Pagone J (a decision published after reserving the decision in this matter for consideration). In those submissions, the applicant contended that it had not abandoned the pleaded presumptions in s 126B(5) and (6) (at para 7(c), SFAR). However, the trial was conducted on the basis that the applicant had abandoned any reliance on the United States Copyright Office registration as the principal judgment reflects at [73]. The applicant, in its submissions arising out of the Pokémon decision sought to revive its concession on s 126B(3) (which, in any event, had brought the application of s 126B(5) to an end).
26 However, the submissions ordered to be made concerning the Pokémon decision were required for the purpose of enabling the parties to determine whether any discussion of the authorities would bear on the questions in issue in the present case to be decided. They were not a mechanism for the purpose of seeking to put in issue by a side-wind things conceded and abandoned in the conduct of the trial and no longer in issue nor the subject of reserved decision-making, having regard to the way the case was conducted by the parties at trial. Had the applicant sought to resile from its concession about s 126B(3) or, for that matter, seek to rely upon any aspect of presumptions arising or not arising in relation to the United States Copyright Office registration, it would have been necessary for the applicant to bring on an application to re-open the case.
27 In the result, the applicant failed to make good HAMC US's title to the work in suit for all the reasons identified at [72] to [113] of the principal judgment. See also T, p 340, lns 5-47; T, p 341 and T, p 342, lns 1-7. This problem also led to the applicant's unsuccessful application in the course of the trial for leave to rely upon the construct discussed at [124] to [135] of the principal judgment concerning the notion that the work is properly characterised as a portrait.