It is well established under Australia law that secondary publishers can be held liable for defamatory material if they had actual or constructive knowledge of the defamatory matter. This was the crux of Dr Janice Duffy’s multi-year legal battle in the Supreme Court of South Australia with internet search giant, Google.

On October 13th, the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (Cth) legislated for the retention of metadata by telecommunications carriers and internet service providers (telcos) for a mandatory period of two years. This data will then be made available to federal, state and territory police, Medicare, Councils in NSW, Worksafe Victoria, the RSPCA, the Tax Office, Australia Post, domestic spy agency ASIO, ASIC and many others when conducting criminal and financial investigations.

Tips

• Take the time to develop an understanding of the cyber threats that could affect your business.
• Work with your clients or board to create a solid cyber-security program that involves the board, management, IT team and employees. A holistic and inclusive approach is required to ensure that proper and functional policies are in place that can and will be complied with.
• Within this ever changing space, continued vigilance and attention to new and current methods, policies, systems and procedures is fundamental if organisations are to minimise the chance of a cyber-attack.

D’Arcy v Myriad Genetics Inc. [2015] HCA 35 7 October 2015

The recent High Court Case of D’Arcy v Myriad Genetics Inc. & Anor [2015] HCA 35 highlights the debate over balancing:

1. the rights of inventors and creators to commercialise and profit from their inventions;  and

2. the interests and needs of the wider society to be able to access biological developments for research and the improvement of public health and welfare.

Those seeking the protection of intellectual property rights argue that the protection of exclusive rights to the intellectual property enables investment which is necessary for the expensive process of taking research to clinical trials, commercialisation and the market.

Those seeking the protection of human rights argue that the granting of monopoly rights restricts further research and also grants access only to those who can afford to pay, to the detriment, for example of poorer nations.

Small businesses are becoming increasingly vulnerable to unfair terms in standard form contracts.  The Government has got closer to addressing this vulnerability by extending the unfair contract protection to include small business contracts.  But what is a small business? And what types of clauses are void?

On the 6^th July 2015, Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) released an Information Paper in relation to Outsourcing. It noted that in recent years there has been a significant change in the way that technology is being employed with shared computing services (SCS) being increasingly utilised by a range of business entities.

On 23 July 2015, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), issued a Media Release opening public consultation on proposed draft revisions to the clinical practice section of: Ethical Guidelines on the Use of Assisted Reproductive Technology in Clinical Practice and Research, 2007 (‘ART Guideline’).11

Another reminder has been sent by the Courts confirming that publication of photos on Twitter on or other web pages does not entitle the world at large to use or republish those photos.

Our quarterly publication will keep you up to date with news and developments in business, corporate and commercial law.

Nothing about the internet changes the fact that the owner of the copyright in a book, movie or music is the only party that has the right to exploit that material. They can offer an end user a license to access the material for a fee, they can give an end user the right to download and play a movie for their personal use, or they can license a movie chain to play that movie in the cinema. Those rights belong to the owner of the copyright and no-one else has the right to use or access the material unless they have the permission (and paid the fee if required) of the rights holder.