Universal Music Australia Pty Ltd v TPG Internet Pty Ltd

Universal Music Australia Pty Ltd and others brought proceedings against TPG Internet Pty Ltd and others seeking injunctions and other orders to disable access to the KickassTorrents (KAT) website, which was alleged to facilitate copyright infringement. The Federal Court was required to determine whether the KAT website had a primary purpose of infringing or facilitating the infringement of copyright, and if so, whether it was appropriate to grant an injunction requiring the respondents to take reasonable steps to disable access to the KAT website. The court also needed to decide whether the applicants should be required to pay the respondents' costs of complying with the injunctions, and if so, what amounts, as well as whether the applicants should pay the respondents' costs of the proceedings.

The court found that the KAT website had a primary purpose of infringing or facilitating the infringement of copyright, as it was used by a large number of users to download and share copyrighted material without authorisation. The court considered the matter to be flagrant and reflective of an open disregard for copyright on the part of the operators of the KAT website. The court also found that the orders sought would be effective at preventing a meaningful proportion of Australian users from infringing copyright via the online location in the future, without giving rise to a danger of "overblocking" legitimate websites.

The court held that it was appropriate to grant an injunction to require the respondents to take reasonable steps to disable access to the KAT website. The court noted that the applicants had taken steps to ensure that Australian customers had access to their licensed copyright content by other, legal means, and that the respondents did not contend that DNS Blocking was unable to be achieved or was impracticable. The court made orders requiring the respondents to disable access to the KAT website within 15 business days of the grant of the orders, by implementing DNS Blocking or any alternative technical means for disabling access to the KAT website as agreed in writing between the applicants and the respondents. The applicants were required to pay the respondents' compliance costs and the costs of the proceedings. The injunction was to operate for a period of three years from the date of the grant of the orders.