The QUT Faculty of Law and Queensland Public Interest Law Clearing House are running two free intellectual property and technology law advice sessions in October and November in Brisbane.

Professor Brian Fitzgerald and Kylie Pappalardo from QUT Faculty of Law, in conjunction with Queensland Public Interest Law Clearing House (QPILCH), have established an IP and Technology Law Clinic to provide free legal advice for members of the creative and technology sectors with limited financial resources. Ask legal professionals about copyright, recording and publishing agreements, media rights, digital distribution, business models, and much more.

Book now for the inaugural advice sessions: Thursday 29 October 2009 and Thursday 26 November 2009, Brisbane CBD from 5:30pm-7:30pm.

To make a booking, call (07) 3136 6836

This is an excellent opportunity for those who need free legal advice in Brisbane. If you're not in Brisbane, you may even be able to get the lawyers at the clinic to give you advice by telephone.

The plaintiff has re-filed in the NSW Supreme Court, once again alleging damages of around $43M in lost film revenues for alleged defamatory statements made by participants on the ZGeek discussion forum.

It now appears that the plaintiff has additionally filed a trade mark application over the name ZGeek and threatened the forum operators with a trade mark infringement action - despite apparently having no legal interest in the mark.

We continue to follow this case closely. The ZGeek operators are soliciting donations in their ongoing legal struggle. Alternatively, if you are a qualified NSW legal practitioner and have the capacity to help out in the pending defamation litigation at a discounted or pro-bono rate, please contact me for more information.

[ Edit: it appears that the Court struck out a preliminary motion to close down the site and rejected the original claim. The Plaintiffs seem to have indicated that they will re-file the claim. ]

The good news is that yesterday, the Supreme Court struck out the ($42M) defamation suit against the operator of ZGeek.

While we're very thankful that this defamation action went no further, the fact that it got as far as it did shows a serious problem with a lack of certainty in Australian law. The non-profit website operator had to expend significant funds donated by the site's members in order to defend the action, and is now saying that the organisation will no longer be able to operate in Australia, given the stress and risk of further legal action:

But now, some even worse news. ZGeek is abandoning Australia. ZGeek as a company has been shut down and any future of the site conducting business in Australia is just not going to happen until the laws change as they offer no protection for internet content hosts based in Australia. Basically, if you allow comment on your website and you live here, you are open for the same troubles as I am having. Even if your site is hosted OS. Got your own blog? Be very worried. Even after we complied with their lawyers demands they are still coming after me and the Broadcasting Act allows them.

Unfortunately, this lack of certainty is a recurring theme in Australian internet laws. Our copyright laws are unclear enough that companies like iiNet are exposed to risky litigation because the movie industry alleges that some of its customers infringed copyright and that iiNet has an obligation to disconnect subscribers based upon unsubstantiated allegations of infringement. The safe harbours are complicated and their scope is unclear. Our defamation laws provide only partial and uncertain protection for website operators, as this case demonstrates. Our censorship laws hold Australian hosts who even link to potentially prohibited material liable for fines of up to $11,000 a day. This level of uncertainty and risk is driving business off-shore and harming our competitive advantage, not to mention the ability of Australians to express themselves online.

Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) today welcomed the decision by software vendor 2Clix Australia Pty Ltd (2Clix) to abandon their lawsuit against Internet forum site Whirlpool.net.au.

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Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) today condemned a lawsuit filed against the operator of whirlpool.net.au, one of Australia's largest online discussion forums.Some messages posted in the Whirlpool forums have criticised the products and services offered by software company 2Clix Australia Pty Ltd (2Clix). The lawsuit alleges that the operator of Whirlpool has maliciously published those comments, with the intention of damaging 2Clix's business. 2Clix claims that these comments have caused a "severe downturn in monthly sales" of approximately $150,000 per month.

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