The copyright claims of the applicant
405 It is now necessary to examine the copyright claims made by the applicant notwithstanding that I have concluded that the applicant has not established ownership of the copyright in the artistic work in HAMC US so as to establish a subsisting exclusive licence in relation to that work. For the sake of ease of reference, all references to the statutory provisions concern the Copyright Act, unless otherwise stated.
406 The applicant contends that Redbubble has directly infringed the copyright in the work described as the Membership Card image (at [17] of these reasons) by communicating the work to the public and by reproducing the work in a material form, although the applicant's "case" was really put on the footing that the respondent has directly infringed the copyright by exercising the communication right. Alternatively, the respondent is said to have authorised the infringement, by the uploader, of each work said to be a communication to the public of the work in suit by the "artist" or is said to have authorised a reproduction of the work by the artist. Alternatively again, the applicant says that Redbubble and the artist are jointly liable because they are said to be engaged in a "common enterprise" or "joint design" rendering them joint tortfeasors in relation to the acts of copyright infringement as a "wrong" which is tortious in nature, that is, there is concurrence in the act or acts causing damage: The Koursk [1924] P 140 at 159-160; Thompson v Australian Capital Television Pty Ltd (1996) 186 CLR 574 at 580-581; 600-602; Ramset Fasteners (Aust) Pty Ltd v Advanced Building Systems Pty Ltd (1999) 164 ALR 239 at 256-257.
407 In these proceedings, the applicant seeks an injunction restraining the respondent from engaging in the relevant conduct and damages. The applicant also seeks additional damages under s 115(4). The applicant pursues an Australian Consumer Law case as already mentioned.
408 As to the legislative provisions, s 31(1)(b) provides, relevantly, that copyright (which subsists in a relevant work; ss 32, 33 and 34), in relation to an artistic work, is the exclusive right to "reproduce the work in a material form" (s 31(1)(b)(i)) and the exclusive right "to communicate the work to the public": s 31(1)(b)(iii). Those exclusive rights (described as "acts comprised in the copyright") are vested in the owner of the copyright: s 13(1). Section 10(1) provides that the term communicate means: "make available online, or electronically transmit … a work or other subject-matter, including a performance or live performance within the meaning of [the] Act". This case, of course, is concerned with an artistic work. The phrase to the public means, "to the public within or outside Australia": s 10(1). In this case, the applicant relies upon an act of making the artistic work available online to the public. No reliance is placed upon the notion of electronic transmission of a work.
409 Section 22(6) provides that, for the purposes of the Copyright Act, a communication, other than a broadcast, is "taken" to have been made by the person responsible for determining the content of the communication. Section 22(6A) seeks to clarify any doubt about the operation of s 22(6) by providing:
(6A) To avoid doubt, for the purposes of subsection (6), a person is not responsible for determining the content of a communication merely because the person takes one or more steps for the purpose of:
(a) gaining access to what is made available online by someone else in the communication; or
(b) receiving the electronic transmission of which the communication consists.
[emphasis added]
410 Section 14(1)(a) provides that a reference to the doing of an act in relation to an artistic work includes a reference to the doing of that act in relation to a "substantial part" of the work and so far as reproduction is concerned, that term includes a reference to a reproduction of a substantial part of the work: s 14(1)(b).
411 Section 36 provides that subject to the Act, the copyright in an artistic work "is infringed by a person who, not being the owner of the copyright, and without the licence of the owner of the copyright, does in Australia, or authorises the doing in Australia of, any act comprised in the copyright". Section 36 contains two separate and distinct causes of action: direct infringement of copyright by the doing of an act comprised in the copyright, that is, "an act of primary infringement": Roadshow Films Pty Ltd v iiNet Limited (2012) 248 CLR 42 at [93] ("Roadshow Films"); and, infringement by authorisation of the doing of an act comprised in the copyright rendering Redbubble a "secondary infringer": Roadshow Films at [93]; WEA International Inc. v Hanimex Corporation Ltd (1987) 17 FCR 274.
412 Section 13(2) provides that the exclusive right to do an act in relation to an artistic work includes the exclusive right to authorise a person to do that act in relation to that work.
413 As to authorisation, s 36(1A) is in these terms:
(1A) In determining, for the purposes of subsection (1), whether or not a person has authorised the doing in Australia of any act comprised in the copyright in a work, without the licence of the owner of the copyright, the matters that must be taken into account include the following:
(a) the extent (if any) of the person's power to prevent the doing of the act concerned;
(b) the nature of any relationship existing between the person and the person who did the act concerned;
(c) whether the person took any reasonable steps to prevent or avoid the doing of the act, including whether the person complied with any relevant industry codes of practice.
[emphasis added]
414 The rights of an exclusive licensee are set out in s 119. Put simply, the exclusive licensee has the same rights of action (except as against the owner of the copyright) as he or she would have, and is entitled to the same remedies as he or she would be entitled to, by virtue of s 115, as if the licence had been an assignment of the relevant rights, and those rights and remedies are concurrent with those of the owner of the copyright, under that section. The exclusive licensee has the same rights and remedies under s 116 as if the licence had been an assignment.
415 The "scope" of the notion of "infringement by authorisation" is informed by the "linkage" between the statute and the common law rendering such conduct "tortious": Roadshow Films at [107]. As to that linkage, where tortious liability arises in a person from some cause other than the commission of an unlawful act by that person, it generally does so because the person has put himself or herself in a position which exposes the rights of others to risk and danger unless he or she shows such care as the circumstances require: Roadshow Films, Gummow and Hayne JJ at [108].
416 In University of New South Wales v Moorhouse (1975) 133 CLR 1 ("Moorhouse"), Gibbs J sought to give content to the word "authorise" as used in earlier legislation in similar terms. Gibbs J said this at 12:
The word "authorise", in legislation of similar intendment to s 36 of the Act, has been held judicially to have its dictionary meaning of "sanction, approve, countenance": Falcon v Famous Players Film Co ("Falcon"); Adelaide Corporation v Australasian Performing Right Association Ltd ("Adelaide Corporation"). It can also mean "permit", and in Adelaide Corporation v Australasian Performing Right Association Ltd "authorise" and "permit" appear to have been treated as synonymous. A person cannot be said to authorise an infringement of copyright unless he [or she] has some power to prevent it: Adelaide Corporation v Australasian Performing Right Association Ltd. Express or formal permission or sanction, or active conduct indicating approval, is not essential to constitute an authorisation; "Inactivity or indifference, exhibited by acts of commission or omission, may reach a degree from which an authorisation or permission may be inferred": Adelaide Corporation v Australasian Performing Right Association Ltd. However, the word "authorise" connotes a mental element and it should not be inferred that a person had, by mere inactivity, authorised something to be done if he [or she] neither knew nor had reason to suspect that the Act might be done. Knox CJ and Isaacs J referred to this mental element in their dissenting judgments in Adelaide Corporation v Australasian Performing Right Association Ltd. Knox CJ held that indifference or omission is "permission" where the party charged (amongst other things) "knows or has reason to anticipate or suspect that the particular act is to be or is likely to be done". Isaacs J apparently considered that it is enough if the person sought to be made liable "knows or has reason to know or believe" that the particular act of infringement "will or may" be done. This latter statement may be too widely expressed: cf. Sweet v Parsley. It seems to me to follow from these statements of principle that a person who has under his [or her] control the means by which an infringement of copyright may be committed - such as a photocopying machine - and who makes it available to other persons, knowing, or having reason to suspect, that it is likely to be used for the purpose of committing an infringement, and omitting to take reasonable steps to limit its use to legitimate purposes, would authorise any infringement that resulted from its use. … Although in some of the authorities it is said that the person who authorises an infringement must have knowledge or reason to suspect that the particular act of infringement is likely to be done, it is clearly sufficient if there is knowledge or reason to suspect that any one of a number of particular acts is likely to be done, as for example, where the proprietor of a shop installs a gramophone and supplies a number of records any one of which may be played on it. …
[citations omitted]
417 In Moorhouse at 20, Jacobs J agrees with the observations of Gibbs J that the notion of authorisation is "wider than authority" and has been given the meaning, taken from the Oxford Dictionary, of "sanction, approve, countenance" as adopted in the authorities of Falcon and Adelaide Corporation (adopting the abbreviation for those cases as reflected in the quote at [416] of these reasons). McTiernan ACJ agreed with the observations of Jacobs J. In Roadshow Films, Gummow and Hayne JJ make two observations about these remarks drawn from Moorhouse. The first is that it would be wrong to take from the phrase "sanction, approve, countenance" one element, such as "countenance", and by fixing upon the broadest Dictionary meaning of that word, to seek to expand the core notion of "authorise": Roadshow Films at [125]. The second point is that given the generality of the expression "authorise", it is worth remembering the observations in Winstone v Wurlitzer Automatic Phonograph Co of Australia Pty Ltd [1946] VLR 338 at 345 to this effect:
As the acts that may be complained of as infringements of copyright are multifarious, so, too, the conduct that may justify an inference of authorisation may take on an infinite variety of differing forms. In these circumstances any attempt to prescribe beforehand ready-made tests for determining on which side of the line a particular case will fall, would seem doomed to failure.
418 Section 36(1A) of the Copyright Act contains language which reflects many of the considerations to be found in the observations of Gibbs J in Moorhouse. In relation to the equivalent provision concerning subject matter other than works (s 101(1A)), Gummow and Hayne JJ said this at [135] in Roadshow Films, which equally applies to s 36(1A):
Section 101(1A) [s 36(1A)] is so drawn as to take an act of primary infringement and ask whether or not a person [the secondary infringer] has authorised that act of primary infringement. In answering that question there will be "matters" that must be taken into account. These include, but are not confined to, the matters identified in paras (a), (b) and (c). Was there any relationship that existed between the primary infringer and the (alleged) secondary infringer? If so, what was its nature (para (b))? Did the secondary infringer have power to prevent the primary infringement? If so, what was the extent of that power (para (a))? Other than the exercise of that power, did the secondary infringer take any reasonable steps to prevent the primary infringement, or to avoid the commission of that infringement (para (c))?
[emphasis added]
419 As to the question of contended direct infringement or "primary infringement" (on the part of either the artist or Redbubble), to use the language of Gummow and Hayne JJ in Roadshow Films, the following matters should be noted.
420 The image at Example 1 containing the artistic work in suit was uploaded to the Redbubble website by a person named De Ann Troen from an address in Virginia in the United States of America on 21 September 2014. It was removed from the Redbubble website on 30 December 2014 as a result of Mr Bolam's letter of complaint to Redbubble of 24 December 2014. The artwork has never been reinstated to the website. In the period it remained on the website, two consumers/users purchased a product bearing the artwork through the website. It was viewed on the website 304 times. It may be that the artwork was viewed by 304 separate members of the public although it is quite possible that one or more persons viewed the image a multiple number of times.
421 The image at Example 2 is a poster image in which the adult character wears a jacket which, in turn, displays the artistic work in suit. It was uploaded by a person named Mel Hok with a username of "LavaMel". Ms Hok uploaded the artwork to the website on 17 November 2009 from an address in West Yorkshire, England. The artwork was removed from the website on 30 December 2014 and was never reinstated. Four consumers/users purchased a product (poster) bearing the artwork. It was viewed 1,724 times.
422 The image at Example 3 which I accept involves a reproduction of a substantial part of the artistic work in suit, was uploaded to the website by a user named Becks Boyd from an address in Addlestone in the United Kingdom. It was uploaded on 4 August 2015 and removed from the site on 25 November 2015. It has never been reinstated. One consumer/user purchased a product bearing the artwork through the website. It was viewed 767 times.
423 The image at Example 4 was uploaded by a person named Pandora Kelly with the username of "Original Apparel" from an address in Winterton in the United Kingdom. It was uploaded on 31 March 2015 and removed from the website on 3 April 2015. The artwork was never reinstated and in the period in which it was online, it was viewed 11 times.
424 Thus, in none of the four examples was the artwork uploaded to the website "in Australia".
425 There is no doubt that the artwork, that is, the selection of the content of that which was uploaded to the website and thus initially made available online to those persons seeking to interrogate the website from any particular jurisdiction, originated with each artist: De Ann Troen, Mel Hok, Becks Boyd and Pandora Kelly, and for that matter, in principle at least, every other artist who has placed an artwork "on" the website by engaging the uploading protocols described by Mr Kovalev, although, of course, the "original image" is stored on the servers in the United States and a "copy" is able to be seen by searching the website galleries of images. Mr Kovalev says that the "copy" is on a "back end server" also in the United States. Nevertheless, he accepts that one cannot get to those images so stored without going onto and through the website in the sense of engaging with the website and undertaking the steps he describes so as to access a particular work.
426 It follows that the "act" of uploading the image in each case was done, I infer, by each artist although it is clear that if any of the four artists immediately relevant to the examples presently in issue (or any other artist, in principle, seeking to upload an image to the website) had experienced difficulty in uploading the image (or should any artist experience such difficulty), the "team" at Redbubble charged with assisting artists experiencing difficulty in uploading, is ready to engage so as to help the artist place the work online.
427 Thus, each of the four artists may have exercised one of the exclusive rights of the owner of the copyright in the relevant work in the jurisdiction where the act of uploading occurred. None of these acts of uploading occurred in Australia.
428 However, each artist, by uploading the work to the website, has nevertheless made the work available online to members of the public in Australia. Any member of the public in Australia using a computer, smart phone or other device enabling an internet connection and operating any one of the many search engines would be able to locate the Redbubble website through use of an internet browser, engage the functions of the website described by Mr Kovalev and, through the website, see the uploaded images in suit containing the artistic works in suit (that is, the work or at least a work being a substantial copy of the artistic work in suit).
429 The Redbubble business model was expressly designed to enable members of the public in Australia (relevantly in this case; and worldwide or at least in a wide-range of particular jurisdictions), to interrogate any or all of the images on the website in the hope that a user/consumer in Australia (and in other places) would find an image of sufficient appeal to engage the consumer in a transaction bringing about the purchase of a product bearing an application of the work to that product, for the very purpose of generating revenue for Redbubble (now a listed entity in which members of the public may buy shares on market valued in the main as a function of a multiple of net earnings) and, of course, revenue for the artist. However, the act of the artist in uploading the image to the website and thus making the work available online to the public must be an act "done" (that is, an exercise of the exclusive right), "in Australia" and therefore, none of the artists in the examples in suit can be regarded as a "primary infringer" in the territorial sense contemplated by s 36(1) because the relevant act was not done "in Australia".
430 In this case, it is clear that Redbubble is not the originator of any of the four images in suit in these proceedings uploaded to its website. Each artist placed the image on the website in the various jurisdictions. However, Redbubble established a business model which enabled each image to be uploaded to its website. Redbubble operates the website which enables any person interrogating the website, in Australia, to view particular material notwithstanding that the electronic pipeline from the user's computer or device, in Australia, through which those images are seen, ultimately leads to servers located in the United States. Although the artist is the originator of the works uploaded to the website, the relevant phrase to be considered in s 22(6) is the phrase "made by the person responsible for determining the content of the communication" [emphasis added], that is, the particular communication in question. Thus, it is necessary to have regard to the relevant communication. It may be that, having regard to the relevant facts in any given case, more than one person is responsible for determining the content of a communication in question.
431 The first relevant communication occurred on 18 November 2014 when Mr Hansen, using his computer in Australia (having a designated IP address characterised typically by a sequence of numbers; for example, an IP address for a computer might contain numbers like this: 177.16.254.1), conducted a search using the Google search engine to locate the Homepage of the Redbubble website, enter a search field "Hells Angels", click the search button and receive, in Australia, a communication in the form of search results that included Example 1 being the image displayed on the "Unisex T-shirt". The same steps were undertaken on other dates that resulted in a sequence of other communications of other images as already described: [53]-[65]; [300]-[311]. Is Redbubble responsible for determining the content of the communication to Mr Hansen on each occasion on the relevant dates as earlier described?
432 In Universal Music Australia Pty Ltd v Cooper and Others (2005) 150 FCR 1, Tamberlin J considered whether the operator, manager and owner (Mr Cooper) of a "highly structured and organised website" (at [13]; the "Cooper website") which contained hyperlinks to thousands of sound recordings located on remote websites from which those sound recordings could be downloaded directly to the computer of the internet user, was "the person responsible for determining the content of the communication". As to the Cooper website, Tamberlin J said this at [74] to [76]:
74 On the natural and ordinary meaning of the words used in s 22(6), in the context of the present dispute, I do not think it can be said that a person who is the proprietor, manager or operator of a website which provides hyperlinks to other websites on which the sound recordings are hosted determines the content of the communication. It is artificial in the extreme to suggest that the person or body who facilitates access from the website to a remote site and provides a trigger which enables sound recordings to be downloaded from that remote site is responsible for the content of the communication from the remote website. The fact is that, on the evidence, Cooper does not "determine", "formulate" or "create" the content of the remote website from which the communication takes place.
75 The applicants point to Cooper's ability to control the links on his website, to determine precisely what files would be made available by means of the links created on his website and the manner in which the files were made available to internet users as indicative of his responsibility for determining the content of the communication. However, a power to remove a hyperlink to a remote website from the Cooper website is not a power or responsibility for determining the content of that remote website and the content of the communication to the internet user. The capacity to prevent hyperlinks from being added to the website, and therefore to prevent internet users from accessing sound recordings via the Cooper website, is not the same as the ability to determine the content of a communication from a remote website. In cross-examination, Mr Speck [an expert] agreed that Cooper had no control over whether a music file remained available on a remote website. …
76 It is the entitlement and role of the designer, operator and owner of a remote website to determine what is placed on that website and therefore what is the "content" of that website. If the content includes infringing copyright material, then the responsibility for that lies with the person or persons who place that material on the remote website and thereby make it available for transmission to the public. …
[bold emphasis added]
433 Although Mr Hansen was the individual who requested a communication by engaging with the Redbubble website and placing the search term in the search box and clicking the search button, it was Redbubble and Redbubble's software located on the server in the United States which caused the communication to be made to Mr Hansen and it was Redbubble's software that determined the content of the communication to Mr Hansen's computer by causing the relevant images to be displayed on it in Australia. In Roadshow Films Pty Ltd and Others v iiNet Ltd (2011) 194 FCR 285, a decision of the Full Court, Nicholas J observed that the content of the relevant communication (on the facts in that case) was determined by the person who responded to the request not the person who made the request: [685]. A similar view was adopted by Emmett J at [166].
434 No doubt, in every case, the answer to the question of identifying the person responsible for determining the content of the communication is a fact-specific and fact-intensive inquiry. In this case, the facts, in my view as set out in these reasons, speak for themselves.
435 The business model as described by Mr Hosking and its working operation as described by Mr Kovalev makes it plain that Redbubble is not in the nature of an ISP linking a user to remote websites. It is not an intermediary providing a transmission service between particular participants. It owns, operates, manages and controls the website and conducts a transactional enterprise in which it facilitates the uploading of images, the interrogation of those images in Australia, relevantly, by users, with a view to enabling sales to consumers of articles bearing the relevant images. It has a detailed business model in which it derives revenue from each transaction and controls every step of the transactional engagement between an artist and a buyer. It confirms the sale. It facilitates payment. It organises a fulfiller to apply the work to the relevant goods. It facilitates delivery of the goods to the buyer. It generates email responses which not only confirm the order but track every step of the transaction. It affixes its own trade marks to the goods. It says that it does not directly do that but there is no doubt that an essential part of its business model is ensuring that fulfillers affix the Redbubble trade marks to the goods. The labels bearing the trade marks are on the goods as delivered to each buyer. Although I will address the trade mark case shortly, the reference to Redbubble's trade marks, in this context, is simply to note another feature of the extent of Redbubble's engagement in and association with each transaction. It is Redbubble's business. But for the Redbubble website, the transactions would not occur. The artworks would not be available online to consumers in Australia to consider and appraise with a view to purchasing a product bearing the artwork. The entire focus of the business model is to enable works to be made available online so that consumers can pick and choose amongst the works so as to have them applied to goods. It would be difficult to imagine a more directly engaged participant than one deploying the business model adopted by Redbubble. Although Redbubble describes itself as the "agent" of the artist (presumably as principal), the relationship is not, in truth, a relationship of agent and principal. Redbubble acts as an "independent contractor" to "facilitate the transaction" as the Redbubble User Agreement and Appendix A to the Services Agreement makes plain: [245] and [246] of these reasons. The artist, in truth, is not the "seller" in the classic sense in which that term might be understood because Redbubble is the supplier as the facilitator of all of the essential elements of the transaction with the consumer in an analogous way to that discussed in: International Harvester Company of Australia Pty Ltd v Carrigan's Hazeldene Pastoral Company (1958) 100 CLR 644 at 653; Heidelberg Graphics Equipment Ltd v Andrew Knox & Associates Pty Ltd (1994) ATPR 41-326 at 42, 310-11, notwithstanding that the nature of the technology is different to the forms of distribution arrangement in those cases.
436 I am satisfied that Redbubble, in Australia, by its business model deployed in Australia, has made the artistic work in suit available online in Australia and I am satisfied that Redbubble is the person responsible for determining the content of the communications to Mr Hansen for all the reasons mentioned above.
437 It is not necessary to consider whether Redbubble is authorising, as a secondary infringer, infringements by a primary infringer. In this case, Redbubble is the primary infringer in respect of the examples in suit.
438 However, had I concluded that an act of primary infringement had occurred because an artist had, in Australia, done an act of making the "work available online to the public", or, had exercised, in Australia, the reproduction right by electronically reproducing the artistic work in suit (or a substantial part of) by uploading and thus causing the reproduction to be presented, in Australia when a member of the public interrogates the website and views an electronic reproduction of the work, I would have concluded that Redbubble had authorised that primary infringement for these reasons.
439 First, the relationship between the artist and Redbubble is one in which Redbubble conceived, deployed, operates, manages and controls the means by which the artist makes the work available for application to relevant goods. It is the supplier to the consumer of the goods bearing the work. It controls and dominates the supply-side process.
440 Second, Redbubble has the "power" and "control" of the website and the entire process as described. It is at the centre of the entire method. It has the power to prevent continuing infringements. It has the power to moderate. Its moderation steps seem not to operate in a way which prevents the same "offending" work to be uploaded immediately to the website under a different URL, even though the work has been moderated under an uploaded URL: [282] to [292] of these reasons.