The Copyright Act provides a safe harbor regime for service providers (or "carriage service providers," as defined in the Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cth)), which limits their liability for copyright infringement by their customers (ie, liability by authorizing the infringing acts of their customers). Service providers must satisfy certain criteria in order to be protected by this scheme. Recent case law has left open the possibility of service providers being found to have authorized copyright breaches through a failure to act against infringing customers.
Copyright holders may issue "take down notices" to internet service providers (ISPs) if, on reasonable grounds, they believe that there is infringing material located on a webpage or network that is under the control of the ISP. Upon recipient of this notice, the ISP is required to immediately remove or block the content and issue an infringement notice to the individual or entity that posted the material.