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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.
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?
Because the studios obviously think the Australian government is more likely to roll over and do what they want than the Swedes?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
.. 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.
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/
"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."
As frighteningly scary this copyright violation behavior we hear about all the time is, all those corporate scumbags who have for years been pushing for the privatization of culture and are step by step chipping at the rights of societies worldwide to enjoy the public domain (which is the fix for the economic damage the copyright monopoly inflicts in the short run) provided themselves the fertile ground for these violations by not adapting to new technologies, and ripping off the customers as hard as they could.
so, there you go.
In the interest of saving time, I will go ahead and get off your lawn so you won't have to ask. Good day, sir.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
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;
The rest of the world will follow in due course.
Ah, this explains how when I woke up this morning all countries had the death penalty, this afternoon there were no speed limits, and tomorrow I'm due to sacrifice my firstborn child after an edict from some leader of a tribe in south America. This automatic copying of laws from other countries is making life rather awkward.
which is totally what she said
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
Tiny floating towns ? (NW of Perth is in the Indian Ocean).
F/OSS is negligible! Negligible, I tell you!
Negligible! Negligible! Negligible! Negligible!
-Steve Ballmer
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
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.
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
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.