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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.'"

6 of 400 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Criminal intent? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    11 million users downloading patches from Blizzard for WoW, movies too. Many sites sharing demos and trailers also use bittorrent.

    Just because they pretend it's a magical piracy device doesn't mean that one set of bits is somehow different then the other set of bits to the programs.

  2. Re:Criminal intent? by eulernet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They should sue the CD/DVD recorders companies, since they encourage piracy, much more than BitTorrent itself.

    Sure, it's useful for doing backups ;-)
    And it would probably be like shooting in oneself foot, since Sony sells DVD recorders.

  3. Re:Criminal intent? by TooMuchToDo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Riiiiight, because my client who uses Amazon S3 to originate huge software packages that are distributed over Bittorrent (a feature built into S3) is obviously committing some sort of criminal act by using the Bittorrent protocol.

    Get over yourself. Next you'll outlaw fire extinguishers because I can beat someone over the head with them. Go after the crime not the tool.

    Disclaimer: Personally, I think media companies have perpetrated a copyright land grab long enough. Fuck 'em.

  4. Re:Criminal intent? by mcgrew · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Bittorrent has a plethora of legal uses.

    You know that and I know that, and I'm sure the studios actually know that, but reality clashes with their desires, so they pretend loudly that their desires ARE reality.

    Truth doesn't matter in a court of law. Only what you can convince the judge and jury is truth is what matters, whether your "truths" are actually true or not.

  5. Re:As frightningly evil... by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh boy,here we go again. This is why I have to repost this every time there is anything to do with the *.A.As put on here. Don't worry brother,the brainwashing can be reversed. You see CustomDesigned,copyrights are a contract,understand? A contract between you,The citizen,and those who wish a copyright. In return for a richer public domain,which belongs to you,me,our kids and grandkids,we give them a LIMITED term of copyright,so that they will make more that we will eventually get in our glorious public domain. See how that is SUPPOSED to work?

    But you see CustomDesigned,that isn't what we have anymore. We no longer have that because evil multinational corporations robbed you by performing the illegal act of bribery upon your politicians and stole your public domain from you,and me,and our kids,etc. So you see,it is kind of hard to steal from the guy who is stealing from you. You can scream "Vote" all you want,but it won't work because you can't write multi million dollar checks like they can. So you can vote all you want and it doesn't change a thing. You see civil disobedience was made for just these kinds of unjust laws written by evil men. What is civil disobedience you say? Why it is just this,refusing to obey unjust laws. Because right now the copyright system all over the world is anything BUT just.

    But what is that CustomDesigned,you think that copyrights are fair? All,well then I have a sentence for you.I believe this sentence has the power to unconver the lie and I have yet to hear even the most ass kissing corporate shill defend it. Are you ready? here goes: Steamboat Willie is still under copyright. You see old Walt has been dead now for half a century,longer than most of us has been alive,and yet his FIRST work,one that was created when cars needed to be started by a crank and antibiotics wasn't even invented yet,is still under copyright. You see,once copyrights extend beyond most human lifetimes they become unlimited. They become a way for a few cartels to lock up our culture and repackage it and resell it for all eternity. That,my friend,is some evil shit.

    So scream "copyright violating scumbags!" all you want,the simple fact is we are ALL being royally buttraped by the big media conglomerates every day of our lives. Just look at the movies from the '30s that they repackage and sell you every year. The actors,musicians,directors,etc are all long dead,yet the giant multinational still gets to charge you for work they had nothing what so ever to do with. I'm sorry but that is some seriously evil shit.

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  6. Simple way to fix this... by Eth1csGrad1ent · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.