Linking can be illegal in Australia

An Australian man have been found guilty of copyright infringement for linking to infringing material, even though he didn't host it himself (via Furd). The ISP was also found liable because they did not take affirmative steps to prevent the infringement.

I haven't been able to find a copy of this latest decision, but it would be interesting to see if there was any similarity to Grokster's "Active Inducement" test. This article suggests that the site had "authorised copyright infringement by providing links to illegally copied music files" and that "[d]isclaimers published on the site were insufficient to provide a shield against copyright claims".

(Also posted on Loosely Coupled)