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Australian ISPs Reject Calls To Police Their Users
jon_cooper writes "After recent setbacks in the RIAA's lawsuits, the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) has decided to try a different approach in Australia - they want ISPs to do their dirty work for them. Australian ISPs, though, have soundly rejected calls from AFACT to slow down or terminate user accounts that AFACT has determined are being used to distribute copyrighted works. Telstra (one of the larger ISPs in question) had this to say: 'We do not believe it is up to the ISPs to be judge, jury and executioner in relation to the issue when the content owners have any number of legal avenues to pursue infringements.'"
'Course, it is former penal colony...
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This will turn around 180' once money comes into the play. You hear that RIAA bring in the millions and we'll do your dirty work for you.
In this world everyone will do it for the money.
I haven't ever been "down under", and am wondering if the companies that serve as ISPs there are multinational corporations? That is, do they service just the Australian mainland?
Of course, New Zealand is rightfully sovereign, but I'm not sure that calling an ISP that services both Australia and New Zealand a "multinational". Really, I'm speaking of any ISP that has customers in Australia, the U.S., Europe, etc. I would even accept Indonesia since they're so big population-wise and geographically...
Is there an Australia On Line (AOL)? Is Time-Warner in the business of content delivery there? Are the phone companies the same? How integrated are U.S. firms with the world telecom market?
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
Most of the biggest demands for broadband probably come from people who illegally download and/or upload copyrighted content. If those acitivities were forced to stop, those people would quite possibly be happy with dial-up. I bet that isn't a risk Australian ISPs are willing to take.
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
Doing said dirty work could be risky. Termination based on loose accusations might end up in lawsuits. Somehow I got the feeling that they don't want any of those.
The issue here is the customer service costs (and loss of revenue). If an ISP cuts off a customer (rightfully or wrongfully), it's the ISP that pays for the irate calls from those customers and suffers from a loss of revenue. Even if the ISP uses an Indian call center, they still face several to tens of dollars in costs as the customer tries to determine why they were cut-off and how to regain service.
Assuming that people have a right to confront the accuser (AFACT), then shouldn't AFACT bear the labor costs of that confrontation?
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I find that part particularly interesting purely because of the idea of pirating TV shows, how, exactly, do you pirate TV shows? Watching them on TV is a free service, you have also been able to record from the TV for a very long time, what exactly is the difference between recording from the TV, and downloading the show from the net, and how does that effect the broadcasting industry?
"we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer
Scary... This must be the first positive thing I've ever heard about Telstra. I'm wondering how long they're going to maintain that stand. Call me cynical, but I'm quite sure the next step is 'buy the government'..
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
With all the zombie computers, trojaned by kids or simply hacked ones it would be easy to make victims download copyrighted stuff without them even knowing it. And so the ISPS would have to either shut down those people's accounts (even though they didn't do anything) or have loads of work to find the one who hacked the computer, and most of the time they probably can't.
... and that's really the crux of the matter. Every picture you take, every letter you write, every story you tell, whatever you create is copyrighted -- by you. You have every right in the world to distribute your creations and you expect to. When you browse a company's web-site, you are receiving images and content that are, ostensibly, copyrighted by them which they also freely distribute so that you can view them on your own computer.
The key is not that a work is copyrighted, but rather that the distribution occurs without the permission of the copyright holder. There's where it gets sticky. The ISP knows you are exchanging copyrighted works because everything is copyrighted. What the indutry is asking for is that the ISP identify specific chunks of data for which the distribution constitutes infringement. But how can the ISP know whether infringement is taking place?
For something to be infringing, they will need to know whether or not the sender of the content is the copyright holder, a licensee for the content with permission to redistribute (like iTunes), the terms under which the content may be distributed (only if fee collected and DRM in place), whether those terms are met (valid credit card number used / the user hasn't implemented a hack to remove DRM), whether the copyright has expired (there are still some copyrights that expire), or whether the distribution constitutes an exception to copyright protection (such as a "fair use" under US law). How can the ISP possibly know these things?
Well, they can't possibly distinguish (doubly so if the content is encrypted). Some of those things can only be answered by a court.
Nevermind it being an unnecessary burden on ISPs or a violation of their customers, the ISP is simply unable to know the legal context in which data is distributed and whether it may constitute infringement. Any accusation of that sort would necessarily need to be vetted through the approriate legal authority, not the ISP.
I AM THE LAW!!!
How many times do I have to say it?
It's like an entity that spent billions of dollars building infrastructure now feels like they have some right to charge money for people that want to use it.
Yes, I know it was done with taxpayer money. But taxpayers decided to vote in a government that made it clear they were going to privatise it, and now it's a typical corporate entity - one that owns almost all the telecommunications infrastructure in the country - and now everyone has to cop it sweet.
I find it hard to believe that this Mark Pesce bloke moved to Australia without realising that it has, like, 10% of the population of the USA and thus probably isn't as technologically effete. It's like an Australian moving to Japan or Korea and being surprised that, shit, if you pack 10x the amount of people into 1/10th the space, it's easier to more connect people with cables.
In any case, for once, I agree with Telstra. I've been laughing at them every time they've called in an attempt to get my business for the last few years, but kudos to them for telling the Mob to fuck off.
yea, good luck with that one ARIA/AFACT. Telstra employ one of the largest legal teams in Australia and regularly, and very sucessfully i might add, defend itself against a litegious government department (ACCC) many times a year for the last 5 years since privatisation. I think their meeting would go like this..
1) AFACT: "Stop your users from downloading our content now!"
2) Telstra: "Umm.. No. What else ya got?"
3) ?
4) Telstra: Profit!
But hey, don't take my word for it, ARIA, AFACT, what ever you are called. Please, try it out a couple of times. It's not like you would be around for much longer after Telstra are finished with you.
(I can see their web site now. A big Telstra logo at the top/middle of the page and in large lettering, p0wned
Copyright Theft eh? is that when you take someone else's copyrights and use them for your own purposes?
maybe like what verizon did?
remember people, copyright infringement != theft
Do you realise that this kind of attitude is why Americans are stereotyped as being totally ignorant and geo-centric?
There fixed that for you... (with a wink and a nod)
Would they get sued for copywrite infringement if they used a duck as a mascot? AFACT AFACT
MISSING - Sig file. 2 years old black and white and very funny. If found please email me.
For something to be infringing, they will need to know whether or not the sender of the content is the copyright holder, a licensee for the content with permission to redistribute (like iTunes), the terms under which the content may be distributed (only if fee collected and DRM in place), whether those terms are met (valid credit card number used / the user hasn't implemented a hack to remove DRM), whether the copyright has expired (there are still some copyrights that expire), or whether the distribution constitutes an exception to copyright protection (such as a "fair use" under US law). How can the ISP possibly know these things?
Simply put, what we (and they) need is a set of extensions to TCP/IP so that a copyright information header is prepended to every payload, specifying in detail the rights the source host has in propagating the packet in question. These will have to be added to every packet and the TCP/IP standard will have to be rewritten, but it shouldn't affect service levels due to cheap and ubiquitous broadband.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
When Futurama first came to Australia, it was aired 11.30pm on a Tuesday night. It was like this the first year and then it disappeared because of 'lack of interest from the viewing public'. The networks would show the first 6 episodes of the first season and then cut to the fourth season, then back to the 2nd season. You knew this was going on because there were characters that you 'knew' had been developed earlier. DVD's were not available until several years later. If you want me to start purchasing the DVD of new tv shows, air then properly so I can begin to enjoy them. Then I want to go out and be able to purchase the DVD once I decide I like. If you muck this order up, what do you expect?
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
I work as an independent IT contractor to a huge media retailer in Australia, and part of my job involves grabbing an enormous amount of data (catalogues, etc) from various suppliers in various formats, and making these data fit our internal system - I have to receive & send this stuff from home, where I do my work.
All told, I go through ~60GB a month, and need a fast connection to satisfy the demands of a company that wants to be accurate to one minute ago. So thanks for your complete ignorance, but that's what it is. Think Steam, LEGAL movie downloads, ITMS, Linux distros, the list of large, legal files is never-ending.
(a) an order requiring the carriage service provider to take reasonable steps to disable access to an online location outside Australia;
(b) an order requiring the carriage service provider to terminate a specified account.
(4) For an infringement of copyright that occurs in the course of the carrying out of a Category B, C or D activity, the relief that a court may grant against a carriage service provider is limited to one or more of the following orders:
(a) an order requiring the carriage service provider to remove or disable access to infringing copyright material, or to a reference to infringing copyright material;
(b) an order requiring the carriage service provider to terminate a specified account;
(c) some other less burdensome but comparably effective nonmonetary order if necessary.
So while it protects them from monetary damages, it seems ARIA has a case under those laws. Not the reassurance I was hoping for.