Under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) (Act), copyright infringement occurs regardless of whether it is intentional or not. Artistic works are particularly susceptible to copyright infringement, because it is possible for two individuals to separately come up with the same idea, reproduce it in a material form, publish it and communicate it to the public.
The result is that an infringer may think they are absolutely entitled to exploit what they consider to be there IP, despite allegations to the contrary. To deal with this situation, section 115(3) of the Act provides the special defence of “innocent infringement”. [Read more…]
