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.'"

Comments

Same ISPs as in the U.S.?

[justanyone]

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?