Australia Rules Linking to Copyright Material Also Illegal

An anonymous reader writes "A recent ruling in Federal court upheld the ruling that the operator and ISP that hosted the site 'mp3s4free.net' were guilty of copyright infringement violations because they provided access to the copyright material. From the article: 'Dale Clapperton, vice-chairman of the non-profit organization Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA), explained the ruling as follows: "If you give someone permission to do something that infringes copyright, that in itself is infringement as if you'd done it yourself. Even if you don't do the infringing act yourself, if you more or less condone someone else doing it, that's an infringing act."'"

Comments

What next?

[junglee_iitk]

I am going to kill my neighbor. Every one here is guilty of not stopping me. Well, at least all Australians.

A *gasp* COMPUTER Was Involved!

[l0ungeb0y]

Quick, jettison all common sense and everybody do the freakout!!

Thank you Australia for showing us there is a nation in the "free world" with it's head *just a little" further up it's ass than America when it comes to copyright law. Remember, every inch counts.

Re:The really scary part of this ruling....

[Gilmoure]

As far as you know, you're not an Australian lawyer? Is there a chance you were down there on shore leave, got drunk, kissed an ugly girl, got a tattoo and passed the bar?

Re:The really scary part of this ruling....

[indifferent children]

How can you not be certain whether you're an Australian lawyer or not? That seems rather like the kind of thing I'd be sure of

In an effort to inject some integrity into the legal system, the Australian government picks people at random and designates them lawyers. You too could be an Australian lawyer, and the notice just hasn't arrived yet. Before you laugh, many countries choose jurors this way, why not lawyers?