Valuation and copyright

Last Sunday the IPKat posted a request for information from an African reader regarding the assessment of damages for copyright infringement. Specifically, "Is there any case law that you are aware of that determines what falls to be paid by a user if no agreement was arrived at prior to a public performance". The Kat hasn't received much in the way of responses, but he did receive this very interesting information from Professor David Brennan (University of Melbourne, Australia):

"Your correspondent and readers may be interested in some Australian developments in two Australian Copyright Tribunal cases, in particular the latter which deals with the public performance right in sound recordings specifically: Audio-Visual Copyright Society (t/a Screenrights) v Foxtel [2006] ACopyT 2 and Re PPCA [2007] ACopyT 1. In both cases, survey evidence of consumer valuation of copyright was adduced with (wildly) varying results! I have attached the slides related to a recent public presentation I gave on point in Australia for IPRIA.

I have written on the valuation of copyright and section 4.7 of my book Retransmission and US Compliance with TRIPS (2003) deals with fair market value awards in English, US and Australian general common law and IP settings".