Melway Publishing Pty Ltd v Robert Hicks Pty Ltd

Melway Publishing Pty Ltd (Melway) appealed to the High Court of Australia from a decision of the Full Federal Court concerning alleged breaches of copyright by Robert Hicks Pty Ltd (Hicks). The dispute centred on whether Melway's street directory, which included a map of the City of Melbourne, infringed the copyright subsisting in a map of the same area created by Hicks. Melway argued that its map was an original work and that any similarities to Hicks' map were due to the common source material and the functional requirements of creating a street directory.

The High Court was required to determine whether Melway's map constituted an infringement of Hicks' copyright. Specifically, the court had to consider whether Melway had copied a substantial part of Hicks' map, and if so, whether the copying was justified by the fact that the map was a functional work or that the similarities arose from the use of common source material. The central question was whether the originality of Melway's map was sufficient to avoid liability for copyright infringement, given the similarities to Hicks' prior work.

The High Court, by majority, found that Melway had indeed infringed Hicks' copyright. The court applied the principle that copyright protects the expression of ideas, not the ideas themselves. While acknowledging that maps are functional and that common source material exists, the court held that Melway had copied a substantial part of the skill, labour, and judgment that Hicks had expended in creating his original map. The originality of Melway's map was not in dispute, but the court found that this originality did not extend to justifying the copying of a substantial portion of Hicks' expression. The court rejected the argument that the functional nature of the map or the use of common source material excused the infringement, finding that Melway had taken more than a trivial amount of Hicks' protected work.

The appeal was dismissed, and the decision of the Full Federal Court was affirmed.