Telstra has lost an appeal to the Full Federal Court today, which upheld a February Federal Court decision that copyright did not subsist in the White and Yellow Pages.

The unanimous decision by Chief Justice Keane, Justice Perram and Justice Yates was delivered in three separate judgements, all in general agreement with Justice Gordon’s first instance decision. Chief Justice Keane observed that “in my respectful opinion, the decision of the trial judge was correct”. [95]

Chief Justice Keane was convinced by the respondents argument that the White and Yellow Pages “were compiled, not by the individuals engaged to facilitate the process, but by a computerised process of storing, selecting, ordering and arranging the data to produce the directories in the form in which they were published.” [7-8]

For the full decision, see http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCAFC/2010/149.html