Downloading
files from a database without authority is a crime, the Supreme Court
ruled. Security guard Jonathon Dixon
must serve four months community detention and 300 hours community work after
trying to make money selling CCTV footage of England rugby player Mike
Tindall’s behaviour in a Queenstown bar during the 2011 rugby world cup.
This Supreme Court ruling makes it easier
to threaten with prosecution errant employees and contractors who download
business files without authority but gain no immediate commercial advantage
from the files copied.
The Queenstown CCTV compilation featured
Mr Tindall, married to the Queen’s eldest grand-daughter, socialising with a female
patron and leaving the bar with her.
When Dixon failed to find a media buyer, he posted the compilation on
YouTube. He was charged with accessing a
computer system for a dishonest purpose, in breach of the Crimes Act. The narrow legal issue before the Supreme
Court was whether a downloaded file amounted to “property”. Conviction would have been easier if Dixon had
made money selling the footage; that would be in breach of the Crimes Act as
obtaining a “pecuniary advantage” from the downloaded file. But Dixon didn’t find a buyer. Police argued it was enough that Dixon
“obtained any property” and the download was “property”.
The Supreme Court was told the bar owner
demanded Dixon hand over the USB stick holding CCTV footage. Dixon refused. He failed to find any buyers after hawking
the footage to overseas media, though the Sun newspaper in London took at least
one still image.
The Court said digital files can be
identified, have a value and can be transfered to others. They have a physical presence, despite
requiring a computer system and appropriate software to view them. Files are “property”, the court ruled. They are not simply information having no
physical existence.
Dixon
v. R – Supreme Court (20.10.15)
15.117