Australian High Court rejects Optus' plea

A special leave application from telco Optus has been rejected by the Australian High Court as it sought to overturn a ruling of the full bench of the Federal Court that the company's TV Now broadcast recording product infringed copyright.

In July 2011, the telco released a free-to-air TV broadcast recording product, called TV Now, that would allow Optus customers to save recorded TV broadcasts from 15 channels to Optus' cloud, which could then be watched on PCs, iPhones and Android products.

With the app, iPhone customers could also stream the recorded broadcast in as little as two minutes delay from the original broadcast.

This morning justices William Gummow, Kenneth Hayne and Virgina Bell denied Optus' application for the case to be heard before the High Court, as they found there was  little chance for the case to succeed.

Optus's vice president of corporate and regulatory affairs, David Epstein admitted the carrier could not continue with the service in its current form in view of the ruling.

He told the Australian Financial Review that he did not think the service could be persisted with at it was currently structured.