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Australian ISPs Soon To Become Copyright Cops

Posted by timothy on from the classic-multitasking dept.

srjh writes "In the Australian Federal Government's latest assault on the internet, draft legislation has been released that allows network operators to intercept communications to ensure that their networks are being 'appropriately used.' Such legislation is particularly important given the interference of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy in a recent copyright lawsuit against iiNet, one of the largest ISPs in the country. Conroy called prominent filtering opponent iiNet's inaction over copyright infringement 'stunning,' whereas iiNet claimed that it would be illegal under current Australian law to intercept its users' downloads. While this latest legislation appears to be a concession of that point, the government is said to be watching the case closely and along with attempts to introduce a three-strikes law in Australia, it appears the law will be changed if the government dislikes the outcome of the case. The internet villain of the year just continues to earn his title."

18 of 183 comments (clear)

  1. This will never happen. by mjwx · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This will never happen.

    With the Emissions Trading Scheme, being voted down yesterday the Rudd government could be on it's way to an early election. The Rudd government has not got a majority, relying preferences from the Greens to secure a parliament majority. The Greens are opposed to both the Internet Filter and the Three Strikes law. Rudd and Labour will do an about face as soon as it looks like they are losing the support of the Greens.

    This is just more scare mongering reporting in preparation for the upcoming iinet/AFACT (MPIAA in disguise).

    --
    Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    1. Re:This will never happen. by srjh · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That's assuming they don't have the support of the Liberals - the traditional social conservatives in Australia. They've known all along that the Greens aren't on board, so it's the Liberals they're relying on to back the government.

      Labor is much stricter on crossing the floor than the Liberals and the threat of an early election might push them into avoiding any double-dissolution triggers.

      And if an early election is held? Labor likely takes the Senate and pushes through the changes anyway.

    2. Re:This will never happen. by Gwala · · Score: 4, Interesting

      >It's bad that we have to choose between two parties, one who wants to be a dictator over my home life and one who wants to be a dictator over my work life.

      Except we don't have to support one of two parties. Australia's first-past-the-post prefential voting system means if you vote for a small party (such as say the Australian Democrats), you can direct your preferences if they don't get elected -- effectively, vote for the party you want first, then vote for the lesser evils further down, and your vote still goes where you want it to.

      --
      #!/bin/csh cat $0
    3. Re:This will never happen. by rtb61 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      As always the opposition party is the opposition. The will always side with the general public to gain votes, gain seats and gain a higher pay packet. What voting for the Greens well and truly demonstrates is the real power of the ballot box in Australia and the ability of Australian politics to resist corporate pressure at this stage not enough but it is growing.

      Three strikes, is dead in Australia, filtering is dying, ISP spying is a no show, all that is happening is the Australian government is being pressured by the US government and the not so free trade agreement, which is basically being used as political blackmail.

      It looks very likely that the greens will gain a lot of public support because the right wing abused their power not so long back and the left wing just ain't left enough. Right and left is really starting to look like minority rich (plus gullible poor) versus everybody else (middle class the survivors and working class with a brain). The internet is driving power and control back to the people and there seems to be a real fight on around seizing back that power by corporations and mass media, that had it for 30 years and they really do not want to let go.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    4. Re:This will never happen. by twostix · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Double dissolution elections have *never* been kind to Australian governments who force them.

      It starts to smell a little to much like brute force when a sitting government dissolves the whole parliament and calls an election simply because they don't want to accept the will of the Senate.

      Australians place a lot of trust and faith in the Senate and where they see the Lower House as nothing more than slimy untrustworthy politicians they view the Senate as a much higher and esteemed authority - and the senators as trustworthy "protectors" of Australian democracy (more or less).

      So when a government goes against the Senate it'd better be damned sure of itself...

  2. What's stunning.. by anomaly256 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    is that Conroy is still in office. I'm fairly certain this guy is on crack.

    1. Re:What's stunning.. by twostix · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Whatever he is he's a goddamned hypocrite.

      His home state of Victoria of which he is an elected government representative has a law banning "altruistic surrogacy" - that is - having another woman carrying a fertilised egg to term then handing the baby over when it's born.

      Disregarding any moral argument on the matter, it's criminally illegal in Senator Conroys home state. So what do he and his wife do? "Route around" the law by skipping over the border to New South Wales to have it organised WHILE STILL REPRESENTING VICTORIA IN PARLIAMENT.

      So the Victorian minister Stephen Conroy doesn't think he should be subject to the laws of Victoria when he doesn't feel like it (notice he kept his seat in parliament and still lives in Victoria) and the hypocrite thinks he has the moral authority to make judgments to form controversial legislation affecting thousands?!

      Convenient isn't it.

      The more I learn about these Labour goons the less I like them.

      Stupid law in Victoria in my opinion but, so is every law Conroy pushes regarding the Internet I wonder if he'll be understanding to anybody who ignores the federal laws that they don't like.

  3. Mesh network (poll) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Straw poll:

    If an Australian engineer was to design a box that could you could buy/build to set up a nationwide mesh network (thereby eliminating ISPs and telco infrastructure from the loop), would you buy or build it?

    What would be your preference?

    a) An open source design that you build yourself.

    b) An assembled and testbed box (for a price of course).

    How much would you be prepared to pay for such a box (assembled and tested, ready to used)?

  4. Re:Do we want the government watching us? by mjwx · · Score: 3, Interesting
    It must be sad in your world AC.

    You've got a say in what your government does? Where do you live and who made you believe that?

    Let me tell you a story about why you are wrong, lets call it Work Choices,

    Work Choices was the IR policy of the previous Fascist government (not to be confused with the current Fascist government) that stripped Australian workers of their rights, this policy was unpopular with the people who then made it clear this was the reason they were voting out the Liberal Facists. Howard, die Fuhrer zum Zeitpunkt, lost his job and Rudd, die aktuelle furher immediately scrapped Work Choices.

    The Liberals will never utter those words again. They learned what it cost them. So yes, I have a say in what my government does, at the very least once every 4 years. It's called an election.

    The thing with politicians is, they try until they get it through. They will not stop until they will have gotten what they want. No matter how often they have to try, no matter what shady tricks they have to use. If need be, they'll just ignore laws and do what they want. They'll get away with it because of their immunity. Three-strikes in France, censorship in Germany, databases in the UK, censorship in AU, etc. they all keep going until they get what they want, no matter how often they get turned down, they'll get it through bit by bit and there's nothing you can do about it.

    Yes there is, often when an Australian politician loses an election, they are sacked. No matter how greedy a polly gets this will always, always be over-ridden by their sense of self preservation. It's the extremists who aren't greedy that are the problem but these guys will always be outnumbered by the greedy who want to survive (and they'll happily sacrifice one another to ensure it).

    Not only are you an ignorant nutter with an extremely limited view of the world, you're wrong.

    --
    Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  5. Re:Australia, who are you? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    thats it. i'm defecting and voting liberal.

  6. Re:Do we want the government watching us? by Cimexus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This guy has a point.

    From my experience of living long term in all three of: Australia, USA and UK, there is far more actual power in the people's hands (at election time) in Australia than either of the other two.

    Partly this is because Australia's population is quite low, so there's less 'layers' between the wishes of the people, and the politicians (one example: the Prime Minister of Australia happened walked right past me on the street in Sydney few weeks ago ... but in America you will almost NEVER just 'happen to see the President' when you go out to lunch). Hell the previous Prime Minister went on a walk around the suburbs every morning and waved and said hi to people. Sure he had a few bodyguards trailing him, but nothing like the 30 guards, 20 armored vehicles etc that accompany the US President around.

    But a bigger reason for this is the fact that there are very very strict laws against corporate influence on politics in Australia. And there are similarly tough regulations surrounding what companies are allowed to do when it comes to advertising, donations, etc etc. Far more stringent than in America. Sure there's still lobbyists and things in Australia. But realistically, the corporate world can't do much in politics in Australia, and they know it. In America, it's all about big business and corporations when it comes to setting the political agenda. In Australia, the issues that average people care about really can decide the elections. (See: Work Choices)

    A final but more minor point is that we do have third and fourth political parties that actually matter. They aren't enough to actually take power away from the big two. But due to the preferences system that we have in Australia, it means that minor parties can influence things in Parliament and aren't just there to make up the numbers. In the US however there really is no serious alternative to the Dems and the Republicans.

    Americans like to point to Australia and say "ha, your democracy isn't as good as yours, you don't even directly elect your head of State!". This is true. Our head of State is technically the Queen of England, and our Prime Minister isn't voted in by the people. But in practice, the Australian system reflects the wishes of the public a lot more quickly and more closely. (The Canadian system is like this too I believe, although I haven't spent enough time in Canada to comment).

    Disclaimer: I'm Australian by birth but have lived 8+ years in the US and 4+ years in the UK. I also hold dual US and Australian citizenship, and love both countries dearly. Both have their strong and weak points. But when it comes to government, I'm afraid the Australian system is just ... better.

  7. Re:HTTPS by Default by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Probably the public outrage over the fact that everyone's CC#s and internet banking passwords would become fair game for Teh Evil Hax0rz.

  8. The liberals wouldnt be any better by jonwil · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I guarantee you that the Liberals (under Howard, Turnbul or anyone else who has a snowballs chance of being Liberal leader) would have supported this kind of "ISP as copyright cop" legislation had they won government instead of Rudd.

    The big push for this stuff is comming from the commercial TV networks (7, 9 and 10), the Pay TV operators (i.e. Foxtel and all the various owners of the various channels) and the movie studios. All of these parties have been arguing that without some kind of "ISP as copyright cop" enforcement to stop piracy (why the same copyright legislation and court system that has served this nation for over 100 years is not suitable for this I fail to see), it will become more and more un-viable to continue to produce content in this country.

  9. Re:Stephen Conroy by AHuxley · · Score: 3, Interesting

    http://www.abc.net.au/compass/s1358912.htm
    Family First: A Federal Crusade
    Should give slashdot readers some ideas about the decade of work that was put into subverting both of the main Australian parties.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  10. Re:Do we want the government watching us? by twostix · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I like to refer to our democracy as Federalism Version 2

    Our founders looked at the US, looked at Britain and took what they thought were the bits that worked and threw away the bits that didn't work from both.

    They really stood on the shoulders of giants and I believe they got it pretty close to perfect.

  11. Re:Australia, who are you? by martinX · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Ditto. It's not as if anyone has asked for ISP-level internet filtering, and we haven't even had some huge scandal (real or manufactured) creating outrage (real or manufactured) resulting in the masses demanding protection from teh ebil interwebs. I just don't understand where this is coming from. If I was a conspiracy nut (I'm not, honest...) it's as if The Master Puppeteers have realised that an idea like this from the Libs would be shot down by people objecting to moralising conservatives intruding in our lives, but when it comes from the ALP, people are sort of confused...

    --
    When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
  12. Re:HTTPS by Default by geckipede · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Time for me to start a bank then. Free porn and VPN with every account containing over £150.

  13. Re:Australia, who are you? by cecom · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That is precisely what may be causing your problem. Easy going people who do not have passion for politics or ideals essentially leave the government do whatever it wants to...