Music Piracy Unit Raids ISP in BitTorrent Assault

renai42 writes "Australia's music industry piracy investigations unit has raided an Internet service provider in Perth, Australia in what it says is the first Australian assault on the use of BitTorrent technology for copyright infringement. Outgoing Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) general manager, Michael Speck, said the raid was launched this afternoon at the offices of Swiftel Communications."

Comments

Company name

[Paska]

It should be noted that the company that got raided, is now called 'People Telecom'. There former name was Swiftel.

Re:Company name

[eln]

No, they are not a government agency, the government gave them a court order authorizing them to do this. Amazing how the government will allow a private corporation to search another private corporation's confidential records, isn't it? I believe similar orders have been executed by various industry groups in the US, like the BSA, and possibly the RIAA.

It's things like this that really give you the impression that government is just a tool of powerful corporations. Whatever happened to government law enforcement agencies enforcing court orders?

Re:Company name

[Atrax]

Who gave them the rights to conduct random raids as they please?

A little-used civil search law, apparently.

The raids were conducted with rarely used search warrants known as Anton Piller orders which are used exclusively in civil proceedings. No police were involved, and the record industry sent its own investigators to carry out the search and seize evidence. From the Sydney Morning Herald.

Re:Company name

[HD Webdev]

It's things like this that really give you the impression that government is just a tool of powerful corporations. Whatever happened to government law enforcement agencies enforcing court orders?

This way the Government dodges the 'unreasonable search and seizure' rule.

They often use 3rd parties to keep from violating the Government's consititution.

For example: Let's say the Government and a criminally-minded person type person suspected I was growning marijuana. He could rob my house, steal that marijuana, show it to the Government, and could tell the Government that he that I was growing it. The Government could then easily get an 'official' warrant to search my premesis for that illegal activity.

But, the police could not do that (directly) themselves because with a good attorney, I would walk right away from the case.

The Governments of many countries use a variation of this tactic to do what they are not allowed to do directly.

They give a 3rd party the advice or permission to do something they aren't supposed to do themselves.

MUTE

[Neo-Rio-101]

Assuming that raid become common practice in the future of the internet, one may actually be surprised that P2P apps are trying to work their way out of having their owners IP addresses traced.

I was surprised (but really, should I be?) to see these kinds of projects. Check out the MUTE project here.

SMH Article

[Atrax]

here, which makes some mention of the law this was carried out under.

"The raids were conducted with rarely used search warrants known as Anton Piller orders which are used exclusively in civil proceedings. No police were involved, and the record industry sent its own investigators to carry out the search and seize evidence."

Discussions on Whirlpool

[The Qube]

There are more details on the case on Whirlpool (Australia's broadband discussion website).

There's also a discussion on Whirlpool's and Swiftel/People Telcom's forums.

The story

[Anonymous Coward]

Many broadband ISP in Australia have uncounted content (does not coun't towards download quota) between users of the same state or where an ISP peers with an internet exchange (eg waix, pipe). This, in combination with often low download limits from ISPs, has lead to a situation where users of this ISP in question had setup bittorrent and direct connect facilities/servers for other users on their own computers (servers and the like are allowed on user connection in this ISP's respective AUP). This way they could exchange files without affecting their quota.

The people who raided the ISP in particular believed that the ISP had setup the P2P facilities for the users (which isn't the case).

Interestingly the hubs and groups who were using these facilities were pretty low key, you would be lucky to find two or three seeders per torrent (for example). I am amazed that they even botherd to do the raids, the people involved number in the dozens only. We aren't talking a Aussie suprnova or anything...

Posting anon for obvious reasons.

Re:WTF

[Atrax]

Australia doesn't have a bill of rights.

Correct

The government can do as it pleases.

Not correct. There is plenty of accountability. Australia is not an autocratic state lacking checks and balances by any means. If a government oversteps its mark, there are numerous avenues by which they can be constrained.

Anton Piller order is not a search warrant.

[ZombieEngineer]

If you are served with an Anton Piller order, you are being asked nicely to allow a solicitor for the plantiff to enter and remove documents relating to the order. If you refuse the order you will be held in contempt of court.

The difference is that the bearer of the order needs to ask for permission to access, if there is no-one present then they can't enter.

ZombieEngineer (IANAL)

The same thing happened in Sweden yesterday!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Swedish ISP "Banhof" was raided yesterday as well. The Stockholm "tingsrätt" (regional court) authorized a civil search of the premise, and using this warrant the organisation known as "Antipiratbyrån" ("anti-piracy bureau", like RIAA). Apparently Banhof was a colocation company as well, and one of their customers was serwing 7 terabytes of music and movies from a server in their facilities. As the offending server was located on the premises of Banhof, the anti piracy bureau used the civil search warrant and the local enforcement office to impound all computers at the ISPs main office. The internet connection is still working for the customers of Banhof, but the employees are prevented from working and their computers have been impounded. According to their warrant for a civil search of premisses, they were supposed to audit Banhof, and as the server serving the copyright infringing material, according to a press statement by Banhof, belonged to a customer renting a space in the colocation facility, it would seem that they have trespassed on the property of that customer as a civil warrant would not give them the right to search any computers but those owned by Banhof itself.