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Studios Sue Oz ISP Over Allowing Piracy
Da Massive writes "Leading Hollywood film studios Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Disney Enterprises are suing Australia's second largest ISP, iiNet, saying it's complicit in the infringement of their copyrighted material. According to a statement of claim, 'the ISP knows that there are a large number of customers who are engaging in continuing infringements of copyright by using BitTorrent file sharing technology.'"
This is the age old debate where possession of a tool is equalled to necessarily having the criminal intent to use it to commit acts you know are ilegal. Next up - watch hardware stores get sued for selling hammers that can be used by thugs and crooks to mug people by hitting them over the head. When will shoe stores get sued for selling boots and shoes that are painful to the person receiving kicks in the ass?
They think something is not legal. The opposing party does not agree, so they take it to the court.
This seems to me exactly the situation where you'd want people to use the courts. Australia's a democracy. Everybody has the right to complain, and they may be right when they complain. Even Disney.
Call again when you have a verdict. Then you have actual information to report.
Why don't do this to all the ISP's in Sweden?
2.6 Million Swedes apparently pirate software, music and movies every day. That's almost 1/3rd of the populace.
They make huge profits from this but in no way are they trying to hinder the use of p2p, well some try to filter it but that doesn't help very much.
Giving up its ghost
the ISP knows that there are a large number of customers who are engaging in continuing infringements of copyright by using BitTorrent file sharing technology.
So what? McDonalds also knows that there are a large number of customers who are engaging in continuing infringements of copyright by using BitTorrent file sharing technology. So does Ford. Smith and Wesson know that they have customers who engage in murder and robbery. The phone company knowingly sells phone lines and number lists to telemarketers.
It is not the company that is doing evil, but the customer. Go after the customer.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
It's not the ISP's job to force its users to use its product legally, take any product that can be used to commit a crime, is the provider or the user at fault?
as this corporate behavior is, all you scumbags violating copyright to save a buck provided the excuse. (Although I must admit, I've never actually observed copyright violations via internet - the teens around here make "mix" CDs of their favorite tracks to give to their friends, but don't share stuff online.)
At least they're not suing a 17 year old with a broadband connection for a change. Maybe the ISP will have enough money that they can actually make a proper fight of this. That might mean we can finally have the argument aired carefully enough the general public can hear both sides.
I agree with what somebody else said about hammers, but I don't think most people yet understand that argument. It will be great for the debate when more people do.
"..the ISP knows that there are a large number of customers who are engaging in continuing infringements of copyright by using BitTorrent file sharing technology"
I also know this. And now it seems the studio also know it, since they claim it. So they should sue themselves too.
This suit is like suing the knife manufactureres for someone choking with steak. It's like suing your mom for being a douchebag. It's like taking a bike from a little girl, and beating her over the head with it. Let the analogies roll...
Can someone sue last century fox if a psicopath starts killing people using a movie as inspiration?
.. when I asked them how I could make back-ups of my games so I don't have to cause damage to the originals to install them ( some 20 odd CDs for 'The Sims 2' ). They told me I couldn't because, and I quote:
"You cannot create backup copies of the discs because this would allow a person to freely distribute copies of the game, which is something EA does not allow."
My reply was similar to some other posts here:
"I have no intention in distributing the copies, I merely wish to protect my investment by not using the original discs and therefore reduce the chance of damage to them. Denying me the ability to do that based on the _possibility_ that it can be used illegally is unfair and unjust.
By the reasoning you have displayed, knives are not permitted to be sold as they can be used to injure or kill someone ( which the law does not allow ), along with plastic bags, rope, water, scissors and plenty of other items you can find in any house. However, this is not the case."
In this case, it is "You are providing a service which allows people to do naughty things amongst other, legitimate activities. We are going to sue you."
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
For knowing that there are a large number of customers who are engaging in continuing infringements of copyright by using media-sized shipping box technology.
Get off my launchpad!
We'd pay to see stuff at the cinema, and own it on DVD / Blu-Ray if they'd just stop suing everybody they can find and put the money into funding good script writers and directors.
I seriously worry about how the American media industry does business nowerdays.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Next up: AT&T, Sprint, Verizon sued because criminals sometimes use mobile phones to plan and execute crimes!
The plaintiffs in this case need to lose bad. If they win then they control the Internet - which may be what they want, but not what the rest of us want.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
"This seems to me exactly the situation where you'd want people to use the courts. Australia's a democracy. Everybody has the right to complain, and they may be right when they complain. Even Disney."
What does being a democracy have to do with taking things to court?
If you wanted to talk about a democracy, you'd say that Disney (et al) would propose a law and allow every person to vote on the merits of that law.
But trying to get a ruling from a Judge instead of working with the legislature strikes me as *undemocratic*.
It would be in the ISP's best interests to stick to layer 3, forwarding IP packets. As soon as you start analysing and filtering them, you're doing a lot more than just being a service provider. The latest trends of demanding packet inspection and performing traffic-based throttling are really destroying the classic model of networking that the internet is based on. It's got to stop, or we'll have something that just isn't recognizable as "the internet" any longer.
If they're smart, they'll just say that inspecting traffic and disallowing certain types of packets is not in their business plan, and they don't have the capability or reason to do it. Otherwise they'll open themselves up to a lot more lawsuits down the road, from both sides of the fence. They'll find themselves having to bend over again and again for anyone asking them for pretty much anything. Instead, the right answer is, "we just forward IP packets, we don't piece them together or look at what they contain."
Apparently iiNet didn't enforce the evil bit
They deserved to be sued.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
It's all his fault.
I'd bet money that iiNet is being targeted because of this story.
In other news, iiNet dropped from largest ISP to second largest ISP in Australia over the course of a week&interrobang;
So, for car drug transports we can sue the government for building the roads they use?
Excellent synopsis and way to deal with allegations, as we've all heard exactly how often they get these things wrong. If there is an allegation of a crime it's up to the police to properly collect evidence and give it to the prosecutor's office, or the equivalent thereof in local terms.
And just like the Pr0n filters the government seems to be forcing on the public over in that section of the globe, it is completely unfeasible for a common carrier to even attempt this sort of thing. I would be completely pissed if I was blocked from accessing anything on the net. If a site is illegal then take it down, but don't try and filter what comes through my pipeline.
An attitude all to prevalent among non-techies, that throwing a few filters in place will magically fix things. Unfortunately I run into this all the time, and no amount of rational explanation makes their attitude change. Some times you have to implement the wrong solution while documenting what the right one should be, then go back and do it correctly for twice the cost.
Note: Cleaned up " ` ' in original quote to display correctly instead of in codes.
HEX
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
File a counter suit, listing ALL the artists, albums and songs that glorify crime. Since people want to try all the cool stuff, like killing people, mugging people, stabbing, shooting, raping etc. they will start out doing something, that has a low risk of getting caught (i.e. piracy).
If the ISP is complicit, the studioes are even more responsible, as they are promoting the stuff that entice people.
Blackamil Victims Association is suing Telco companies for allowing anonymous blackmail phone call. Oh wait..
Remember that SONY (grrrr) produces lots of Films./Music through its plethora of subsidiaries but also makes CD & DVD writers.
Now that I come to think of it, don't they also sell a BluRay drive capable of writing content?
They (the RIAA/MPAA/etc) lawyers are being very careful but sooner or later they are going to come a cropper. It looks like they are targetting the carriers outside of the USA who don't have 'common carrier' immunity. All they are going to do is make more and more people pissed off at everything that comes out of the USA.
They can sue me(if they like) for using Bit torrent because in a few days Fedora 10 will be released and I will be seeding it once it is out in the wild but they ain't gonna win.
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
so, sue me ?
Read radical news here
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Until the Hollywood studios are ready, willing, and able to deliver their newest products, very inexpensively, to people living in tiny towns 700 miles northwest of Perth, they should stop hassling the people who are actually presently doing this.
bittorent isnt evil. in fact, one could argue it's more efficient and cost effective than stamping disc after disc of 'i am legend' and 'happy feet' into a holographic, 3d box, which is then encased in a plastic alarm, which is then tagged with a theft sticker but not before being shrink-wrapped. all this is then whored up with stickers and its own display case the size of a lawn tractor trucked into thousands of walmarts.
fundamentally the concept of a movie must change. it cant be something thats administered in a controlled fashion like morphine, the technology has made that model obsolete. lowering the cost of a DVD to $12 doesnt work either, because the media available online is still free. if you're going up against free, you'd better come out with a stellar product or go home.
the only solution is to accept that either the reign of the film tycoon is over and moving pictures have been forced back into an artform, or embrace online technology and advances like CGI at their actual cost...not pixar's billion-dollar markup.
the whole goddamned film 'industry' is a conglomerate of artificiality, and im afraid the only ones to be stunned by the real prices of their 'art' are ironically the industry members themselves.
Good people go to bed earlier.
>>>Go after the crime not the tool.
Would it be acceptable if I went after the RIAA CEO with a BFG? (Democratic Party Founder Thomas Jefferson says, "...the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants...")
Well, I'd nullify if I was on the jury when you went to trial, but why waste ammo? I've got a tire iron autographed by Tonya Harding I'd be willing to lend you.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
""Leading Hollywood film studios Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Disney Enterprises are suing Australia's second largest ISP, iiNet, saying it's complicit in the infringement of their copyrighted material. According to a statement of claim, "the ISP knows that there are a large number of customers who are engaging in continuing infringements of copyright by using BitTorrent file sharing technology".""
Well I've certainly noticed the USUAL tags so here's a question. Take all those content provider names out and substitute "small mom and pop content producers that doesn't have a lot of resources", legal or otherwise. Now ask yourself if the tags are applicable (protecting hard work or greed "we feel you've made enough")? And at what point will we be satisfied that everyone who produces and consumers will be happy with the set of compromises that will be required? Or do we still believe in "my way or the highway"?
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
I'm just wondering how the studio would react if the ist came to court and said that the whole responsibility is the studio's for not adequatly protecting it's material.
I haven't bought any music for years, now I'm not going to pay to purchase, rent or see anymore movies from major studios. Anything less would be unethical upon my part. The only reason these people prosper is because other uncaring people support these greedy cheaters by buy their overpriced crap.
If more people were more discerning with their purchases, there'd be a lot less corruption in the marketplace.
The government for financing roads that are used for shipping pirate DVDs, and the phone companies for allowing the conversations between the buyers and sellers of the illicit product.
Oh yeah, and the car manufacturers for the vehicles used for transportation of the goods, and the oil companies for the fuel ...
Our fucktard in chief, AKA Naboleon, is pushing for his three-strike law to please his big content buddies. I talked to the fine people fighting this nonsense, and that much is clear: beyond the obvious evil motivations, the main feature of these assholes is their complete lack of understanding.
It's not just that they don't get it -- and they certainly don't get it. It's that they don't even care. Sure they order surveys from academics and various government agencies; but they quickly proceed to ignore them, or claim the opposite of what they say.
The list is mind boggling. Every single government-related agency with a modicum of technical or legal expertise and a minimal amount of political independence has rejected their proposals in surprisingly frank terms:
And the dumbass in charge of this nonsense, Christine Albanel, basically claims they all support her position. Conveniently, the afore-mentioned career civil servants and jurists are prohibited to respond publicly.
It's just insanity.
It's not yet quite as retarded as the aussie's anti-porn filter, but we're closing in.
would be no digital piracy. After all this is the starting point. Why don't they go after hardware or OS manufacturers.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
F/OSS is negligible! Negligible, I tell you!
Negligible! Negligible! Negligible! Negligible!
-Steve Ballmer
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Wal-mart sues US DOT and all state DOTs for allowing shoplifters the use of public roads when leaving with stolen property.
I read the script, and I think it would help my character's motivation if he was on fire. -Bender
Perhaps they're suing an Australian ISP because they know that it won't fly here in the U.S., and they're hoping if they win enough overseas cases against ISPs that it'll significantly influence future actions again American ISPs? I know we would all like to believe that the MPAA and RIAA are all knee-jerk, but it stands to reason.
The world is full of people who want to exploit you. Their value system defines "fairness" as "a semantic game I play when trying to convince the government to legislate in my favor, or when trying to convince a judge to rule in my favor."
In order to be treated the way you want and to be able to do what you want and to be able to get what you want, you will always have to fight against these people. Each battle you win will be followed by another. The war will never end.
For better or for worse, this is how humans are.
By now, the only place left for media people who hate "file sharing" is inside the big media corps that make up RIAA/MPAA membership. The smart people have all left those doomed beasts.
The ones left share another trait: losing massive money - even as the environment should make it easier than ever to make more money, amidst quickly growing global markets, production cheapness and distribution fluidity.
The only trait keeping them from extinction is their business cartel and their legal copyright monopoly.
Which is why they're working that angle so hard, doing it to death.
--
make install -not war
so the guys with the massive botnets can shut them up forever.
This is the equivalent of suing state highway departments for allowing drug trafficing or the transport of stolen goods. It's insane and inappropriate to hold the ISP accountable for something the customer does. And the ISP should not be held as a police of the network except to the extent of theft of ISP service like any other service.
While you're right that people aren't automatically copying other countries' laws, you missed the point that there are tons of lobbyists involved.
They go around and try to get us to "harmonize" the laws, except that with copyright terms, they managed to get them to leapfrog each other in the past few decades, so that they could always go to more countries and ask them to "catch up."
Now, it doesn't apply as much with legal precedents, but they do use that as an argument to tell lawmakers that we need "reform" so that they can do what they did in some other country here.
These are the people who called the VCR the equivalent of the Boston Strangler. They've fought tooth-and-nail against every single bit of progress since then. They won't stop. Their jobs are at stake. They've been going obsolete for decades now, and they won't vanish without a fight.
wait, iiNet wasn't the one actually experimenting the new Australian filtering technology? This lawsuit is a HUGE win against such filtering protection... or not? Am I missing something?
Yes, it is an indicator that iiNet is opposed to internet content filtering. However, it's also an indicator to all ISP's around the world that if they do not employ filtering they risk an extremely expensive legal battle with the seven top film studios, each of which probably has more assets and prior experience in court than the ISP's.
What's strange and rather scary about this situation is that "iiNet will be participating in the trials, mostly to prove that the filters are impractical, unworkable and unwanted." [see link above] The studios are suing them not for refusing to cooperate, but for cooperating reluctantly. That's all it takes for the MAFIAA to pull the trigger it seems.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
As a customer of iinet, I know their service rocks. I also know that the largest plan (which I have) is 65GB on peak, 65 GB offpeak at 120AUD which is a disincentive to seeding (and thats the best value, other plans are nearly as costly but have much less bandwidth). What baffels me is that they go after the ISP all Aussie nerds prefer, risking their wrath, when clearly other countries with much larger "unlimited" caps are still going strong.
I'm waiting for the day that we can collectively sue these media organizations for contributing to the demise of entertainment. Seriously. I can no longer in good conscience buy DVDs, CDs, or the equipment to play them because I don't want to be involved in supporting these morons. I keep hoping that they'll eventually go away, but someone is obviously continuing to finance their reign of nonsense.
I don't believe in karma, I just call it like I see it.
In related news, gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson is being sued because "they (Smith & Wesson)know that there are a large number of customers who are engaging in continuing infringements of property rights by using firearm technology."
Last night I played a blank tape at full volume. The mime next door went nuts.
We should start a class action lawsuit against the RIAA/MPAA for producing works that encourgage piracy. They release overly high priced products that people want to pirate - it's called tempation if not enticement to pirate.
The Truth is a Virus!!!
Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT*) tactics will changes when iiNet starts trialling the Government's "Great Wall" filtering. AFACT will concentrate on getting "infringers" IP addresses listed on the filter's lists. Of course, every xDSL service will be included... goodbye to running your own web server or accepting connections to ports commonly associated with "evil" P2P. If your ISP doesn't pay some sort of "AFACT Tax" will have to filter their own user's hosted personal spaces.
Seems much cheaper to corrupt this system than file endless law suits.
* I bet someone thought they were Soooo clever when they found some words to fit this acronym. Shame that it's probably better described as an
Australian puppet body mouthing the half-truths of their corporate overlords. No neato acronym there.
Given the severe bandwidth caps on Aussie ISPs I'm amazed anyone's able to download movies down there.
My version of the analogy: This is more like them suing the highway maintenance/construction contractors, shipping companies and car/truck manufacturers, for the traffic of contraband and stolen goods on public road infrastructure.
Meanwhile pressuring local body government to require transparent trunk lids and a search checkpoint for every single vehicle passing through for illict substance/stolen goods at the expense of traffic flow. Throw in a Toll booth for all traffic that returns money to the legal body representing the shops that had stuff shoplifted from.
Car analogies fit so well... in this case information technology infrastructure is crucial for business.
How about suing the traffic cops for not policing the roads? That holds more water...
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
iiNet CEO Michael Malone disputed AFACTâ(TM)s claim that it refused to address the issue.
"We have been replying to them each time as well," he replied. "We have been passing on all those complaints directly on to the state police â" who are in our building. The police have reams of this stuff from AFACT," he said.
This is a local free-to-air station that is pushing the whole issue (Channel 7). Boohoo to them. If the police can't find anything wrong then there's no case, surely?
It's oh so easy to see why they picked iinet.
They're trialling the govt's net filter - only to prove that it doesnt work.
By suing iinet, they're effectively lobbying the govt to include warez in the filter.
Soon, we'll have a safe list of www sites on port 80 only.
Of course.. they're not going after Telstra, the No.1 telco in the country because that would be a Title Fight, as opposed to the David & Goliath battle they've waged here. There IS a simple way to fix this. Require IP holders to sue for ALL breaches of their IP content that they become aware of, otherwise they lose their hold on that IP. That means they HAVE TO sue the senators son for mp3s he's downloaded. They HAVE TO sue the No1 Telco for copyright infringements, not just the No2 ISP. In the end the MAFIAA will be suing so many different people that the people will demand a rewrite of the IP laws. The only way that this can come to a head is to prevent the MAFIAA from selectively picking their targets as example cases.
*Movie studio execs strategy meeting*
"We have a problem, people are copying our movies without paying, and litigating individual cases is such a bother"
"I know, lets sue The Internet!!"
*standing ovation*
The studios themselves appear to be more complicit than any ISP. They're the ones who push this stuff in digitized form in the first place. If they really don't want it ripped and shipped, then they should be offering it in a form that doesn't support such.
No more absurd than suing an ISP. They are at least as complicit as the ISP(s) in the infringement of their own copyrights. Going to another format isn't impossible, either. Let them go back to tape.
I'm really tired of seeing legal efforts to hamper and hobble reasonable computing capabilities, P2P, operating systems, tools, etc., just because the studios want it. I'd much prefer they took their movies and songs somewhere else. I just don't want their crap anymore.
"Unless there is large scale commercial piracy going on the police just won't care, and until then it's a civil dispute that to go before the courts."
Right, and they have the tools already in hand to do a correct job, but they want to push the cost of their enforcement on somebody else.
They have the right and ability to go to court, ask the court to compel the ISP to tie the IP address with a person's name, and then start a lawsuit against the person who they allege was infringing on their copyright. That's the way copyright is intended to work. But what they're asking is that everybody else should bear that cost of enforcing copyright simply because it's cheaper to force other people to do it.
That doesn't make sense on so many levels. It gives copyright holder basically rights over any sort of communication on the theory that it might be something that would infringe their copyright. It's madness. Worse, in this day and age, *everything is copyrighted*. This post is copyrighted. How does an ISP even know what is okay to not filter?
It's nonsensical. Unfortunately, the RIAA (and others) won't soon come to their senses because it's not in their interest to come to their senses.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
This is about suing the little guy in an attempt to scare others. It's is about forcing these ISP to police for the movie studios.
They can't do this in the US where we have certain protections on our ISPs. Otherwise the movie studios and recording mafia would be attacking every company. These movie studios researched for a country which either had odd laws that permit this sort of legal action or that were so lax that there's no protection for the communications industry.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
I'll just photocopy some magazines and mail them off to a bunch of people, then tell the publishers to sue the government for aiding in the trafficking of the material.
The 5th st bank has been robbed by armed asailants! Luckily, witnesses managed to jot down the manufacturer of the guns they were using, the type of car they had, and the road they went down. Colt, Ford, and The public works deparptment will all be called in for questioning.
iinet being sued the week after they agreed to start filtering content on the internet.
I know that they were doing this to prove that filtering won't work, and hopefully this will help prove their case to the Aust govt... but I doubt it... the Aust govt will probably decide that this is exactly why the filters need to be stricter...
-- Sex is the antonym of pringles. Once you pop it's time to stop.
They can go ahead and filter bit torrent if they want. It will just push everyone to encrypted connections and vpn's that much quicker. I used to use bit torrent extensively to download but only to upload now(legacy users:)). I have moved on from bit torrent, to something faster, and encrypted, when not on private secured sites. Newsgroups. I am also lucky enough to be able to afford ($300AUD a year) a secure vpn to an anonymous server/s(at DSL speeds). The point is is that "they" (the powers that be) are NEVER going to be able to stop a minority of users sharing what-ever-they want over the internet, and these minority will disseminate the power to across the majority.
Disseminate the Power!
We need a *REAL* Aussie government that tells the yanks to fuck off. I'm sick of the US bullshit in our country, this is fucking Australia, not the US of A.
Dave
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. --Martin Luther King Jr.
And stop stealing everyones ideas and profiting from them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buchwald_v._Paramount http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting