Optus says it will appeal a Federal Court ruling that effectively ended its TV Now service for its mobile phone customers.

The telco on Thursday said it would appeal to the High Court to overturn the Federal Court’s ruling in April which prevents TV Now subscribers from watching recorded free-to-air programs on their mobile devices.

Optus chief executive Paul O’Sullivan said the TV Now case was important in deciding the future for innovation, consumer choice and competition in Australia.

“Australian consumers want legitimate access to content on any device regardless of the genre and we want to continue making the latest technologies available to Australians to meet this demand,” he said in a statement.

“This is a very important public policy issue that needs to be determined by the highest court in the land, to give clarity to both consumers and the industry.”

Optus launched its TV Now service in mid 2011, enabling NRL or AFL matches to be viewed on a slight delay.

However, its rival Telstra, the AFL and NRL took Optus to court, arguing the telco was breaching copyright.

Optus won the first round in the legal battle in the Federal Court in February when the court found the TV Now service did not breach copyright.

The court found that the TV Now service did not breach copyright laws as its customers were responsible for the recordings – similar to a person using a video or digital recorder. Therefore, TV Now was exempt from the Copyright Act.

But in April, the AFL, NRL and Telstra won an appeal against the earlier ruling.

Federal Court justices Paul Finn, Arthur Emmett and Annabelle Bennett ruled that Optus was the maker of recordings, and that meant the company was in contravention of copyright laws.

Justice Finn said Optus was unable to use the “private and domestic use” defence to avoid the Copyright Act and, therefore, the appeals must be upheld.

The decision protected the $153 million rights deal Telstra has with the AFL.