ARIA Threatens To Sue Internet Service Providers

tymbow writes "It seems that ARIA (The Australian Record Industry Association, like the RIAA) is threatening to sue ISPs who allow the illegal download of copyrighted music. Could this lead to a situation where Australian ISPs are forced to actively censor websites and P2P protocols? What happens to legitimate P2P content like Linux distributions? It will be interesting to see where this goes."

Comments

Probably a Breach of the Privacy Act

[Joel Carr]

I was talking about this very topic with someone yesterday. It appears the ARIA is trying to use wording in Australian copyright law to claim ISPs are responsible for the copyright infingement of people who use their network. It's a stupid and somewhat illogical claim, but not really all that surprising.

Some high profile lawyers have already had a say on the issue, and have stated that ISPs would likely be in breach of the more recent privacy act if they were to implement the sort of censorship the ARIA is demanding.

As an aside, it must be said that both copyright and privacy laws have some serious issues in this country. It is illegal to copy music from a CD in any shape or form. You cannot legally burn copyrighted CDs to use them in your car, you cannot legally make MP3s from copyrighted music to use on your PC regardless of whether you purchased the music or not. Also, the new privacy act is so over the top in some places that it is virtually impossible for some organisations to come into compiance with it without breaking it in the process...

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