authority would have to be done by the High Court. Sackville J noted that the trial and the appeal were conducted on the basis that it was unnecessary for Telstra to establish that the directories or headings books had a particular or joint authors. Synthesising the historical cases, he concluded that "a compilation of factual information will ordinarily be an original literary work for copyright purposes if the compiler has undertaken substantial labour or incurred substantial expense in collecting the information." The decision in Feist reflected considerations peculiar to the United States. Black CJ agreed with the reasons of both Sackville and Lindgren JJ. The appeal was dismissed. Post-IceTV consideration On 22 April 2009, the High Court of Australia handed down its decision in IceTV Pty Ltd v Nine Network Australia Pty Ltd. Gummow, Hayne and Heydon JJ criticised Desktop Marketing and concluded that copyright did not subsist in a similar compilation produced by the Nine Network. Noting the failure of the parties in Desktop Marketing to identify the compilation's authors, their Honours found that "it may be that the reasoning in Desktop Marketing with respect to compilations is out of line with the understanding of copyright law over many years." On 8 February 2010, Gordon J (then sitting as a Federal Court judge at first instance) determined that Telstra does not hold copyright in the White Pages or the Yellow Pages. While Telstra had argued that the decision in Desktop Marketing continued to apply, Gordon J noted the High Court's warning and that Finkelstein J too had questioned the parties' underlying assumptions about authorship. Gordon J found that Telstra had "manifestly" failed to identify the joint authors of the White and Yellow Pages, and "none of the people said to be authors of the Works exercised 'independent intellectual effort' or 'sufficient effort of a literary nature' in creating the Works." Telstra's appeal to the Full Court (Keane CJ, Perram and Yates JJ) was dismissed on 15 December 2010. The decision was described by a commentator as "at odds with reality" and a spokesman for then-Attorney-General Robert McClelland said the government was considering the implications of the decision. See also Copyright Copyright in compilation Database right Australian copyright law IceTV Pty Ltd v Nine Network Australia Pty Ltd United States copyright law Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co. Sweat of the brow References Federal Court of Australia cases