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Australian ISPs Reject Calls To Police Their Users

Posted by Zonk on from the they-like-money-i-bet dept.

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.'"

4 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Give it 1 year. by the_unknown_soldier · · Score: 4, Informative

    There isn't any RIAA in Australia. It's ARIA.

  2. Re:Same ISPs as in the U.S.? by microbrewer · · Score: 4, Informative

    Australia has Telstra the former national government owned incumbent telephone monopoly that still thinks its part of the government .

    Because it was the national incumbent Testra still own most of the infrastructure and has control over the Australian backbone that is leases to ISPs at exorbitant rates ,

    Most Australian broadband plans are either metered or capped .

    Mark Pesce an American that Lives in Australia (although we call him an Aussie now since hes applied for Citizenship ) who was also one of the creators of VRML did a great piece in the Meblorne Age why Aussies hate Telstra

    http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/why-we-all- hate-telstra/2007/05/19/1179497337693.html?page=fu llpage

  3. Re:Hmm... by deniable · · Score: 4, Informative

    One of the major reasons cited for downloading TV here is the time delay from the US/UK. In the bad old days it took 3-4 years for ST:TNG to start here. Must have been the dubbing delay. We then got the shuffled season 1 and 2, the graveyard time-slot and irregular schedules. Back then people got around it by mailing VHS tapes.

    So when Australian networks treat a show like garbage, downloading gives you a better product with more reliable timing. The counter for this is that we are now getting some shows within weeks of the original airing. Californication is about two weeks delayed. This helps protect the ad revenue.

  4. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion