Music piracy, universities and the Australian Federal Court: Issues for forensic computing specialists

Abstract

This article examines a recent judgement in an Australian Federal Court case involving three Australian Universities and representatives of the Music Industry. From a forensic computing perspective, this case is of concern because of how the judgement reveals serious flaws in understanding amongst all participants in the case over the nature of digital evidence and how it should be best collected, analysed and presented. More broadly, the judgement also appears to have worrying implications for individual privacy and data protection. In this context, this article reviews the case and explores the approaches of the three parties involved – applicants, respondents and federal court judge. The article considers the implications of this case for the forensic computing domain and highlights the need for the development of standard frameworks for the conduct of forensic computing investigations. In this regard, the article concludes by briefly presenting the framework proposed by the European project ‘CTOSE’ (Cyber Tools On-line Search for Evidence).