The copyright fight that could chill investigative reporting

At first glance, it appears perverse... an animal rights group secretly films scenes it alleges are examples of animal cruelty at an abattoir, and a court grants copyright over the video to the subject of the film, the owners of the abattoir.

On a summer's night early in 2024, a group of activists from Farm Transparency International (FTI) scaled fences with signs marked "Private Property" and snuck past security cameras onto the grounds of the abattoir in rural Victoria. Once inside, they drilled holes in the ceiling of the slaughterhouse and placed tiny hidden cameras to film the slaughter of goats for export. Seven times they made it onto the site, to collect footage and refresh batteries.

The activists claimed the video showed evidence of what they alleged was animal cruelty. They edited the hours of footage down to a 14-minute compilation and sent it to the Department of Agriculture. When the department didn't respond, the team sent the video to Channel 7 and uploaded it to their own website.