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AU Legal Group Says ISP Allowed 100K Illegal Downloads
In Australia, a court wrapped up day one of what promises to be a 4-week trial of media interests against ISP iiNet. Reader bennyboy64 writes "iTnews reports that Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft investigators claim to have recorded almost 100,000 instances of Australian internet service provider iiNet users making available online unauthorized copies of films and TV programs, lawyers for the film industry said in the Federal Court in Sydney today. The lawyers for the film industry claimed iiNet had done 'nothing' to discourage copyright infringement on its network. iTnews also has a background piece on the case, with a Flash-y graph."
Yes, they did. So did I. But htere's a legal distinction between "allow" and "authorise", something AFACT appears to be doing its best to ignore.
that they weren't required to do!
Time for me to sue someone for not giving me money!
Saddle up, we're going to Australia!
Blah blah sig blah blah blah irony blah blah
This just in! A group of car insurance companies just sued several state governments because they have allowed drivers to operate vehicles at unauthorized speeds, which led to accidents and higher insurance costs! Insurance companies know this because bicyclists have been watching how fast cars go, and they go way too fast!
Wait a minute, you can actually prove tangible losses from people speeding. That would make this lawsuit a little more feasible than what AFACT wants.
From what I gather, BT neither discourages or is expected to discourage the use of their phone network for things like buying controlled substances and arranging burglaries. That's normally left up to the police.
" investigators claim to have recorded almost 100,000 instances of Australian internet service provider iiNet users making available online unauthorized copies of films and TV programs" :artical
So, where is it written that a private investigator can lawfully stalk 100,000 other 'net users, ie, without their permission, in advance?
Could iiNet has another (eg, enabling/allowing privacy infringement) case to answer?
They'd better get their users to encrypt all Vuse traffic, from now on... ;-)
So the argument here is that the ISP is liable for illegal content exchange. What about the router manufacturer? How about the OS manufacturer? If the traffic was all encrypted, is the ISP on the hook for man-in-the-middle attacks to decrypt and inspect the content, or will they then be liable for invasion of privacy? Is there such a thing as privacy down under?
It's clearly the fault of the content producers. Without them there would be no infringement.
Anyway, there's an even better solution that the film industry should consider - banning the iTunes etc accounts associated with these IPs. I guess they prefer to damage other people's business though.
What's more is there's a kiwi group of 10 thousand artists against NZFACT because they're sick of being misrepresented. here's their press release tearing into NZFacT.
Don't be a twerp. If you use a BitTorrrent client, you can find out the IP address of the peers offering a particular Torrent over the network. If those IP addresses belong to an iiNet customer, then you can record the time, torrent and IP address from the safety of your own home without having to do any further sneaky investigation. You personally wouldn't be able to tie up that IP address to a particular user but I'm pretty sure the ISP would have a log which could make that connection. If they didn't have a log, it'd be a pretty shoddy operation.
Squirrel!
I think they're a great ISP but I can't really understand the policy of not passing infringement notices from AFACT to its customers even if they're not legally required to do so. They could be prefixed that the communication is not from iiNet, the allegations might not be founded and it's merely for your information etc etc.
Afterall if demanded by a court they are going to hand across your details. Personally I'd rather know as soon as possible so I could either refute the claims, take measures to avoid future detection or stop the behaviour that caused it. Or of course I could choose to totally ignore it, but either way I'd at least like to be informed.
This just in! The telephone companies do nothing to prevent people from discussing crimes on the phone! Spray can manufacturers do nothing to prevent people from doing illegal graffitis! Sock manufacturers do nothing to keep people from kicking each other's asses!
Today's discussion seemed to question the measurements of that figure.
ie, was that 100,000 pieces of files shared, 100,000 files being shared, 100 files shared 1000 times, etc.
The lawyers for the film industry claimed iiNet had done 'nothing' to discourage copyright infringement on its network.
I don't understand. Are your telecom providers forced to actively discourage illegal phone calls, such as bomb threats or sexual harassment? Are your book dealers forced to actively discourage photocopying of books? Are your radiostations forced to discourage people from turning on their radios in public locations without paying STIM? Are your pastry bakers forced to discourage people from throwing cakes at eachother?
Australia, help us understand your line of thought.
I am the lawn!
Dowloads should be Downloads :) -- My mistake.
Your expectation to privacy goes out the window when you advertise your details, such as IP addy in bit torrent. But I supposed you're the same kind of person who complains when an employer refuses to hire your drunk arse after looking at your facebook.
AFACT: "All messengers carrying bad news should be shot".
This is how I understand their approach.
As an internet provider it's kind of a pain in the ass to police the entire internet. It's not at all difficult to refuse to serve a problematic customer. Like the one that keeps demanding that you police the entire internet. You see where I'm going with this?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The RIAA and it's subsideries (Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft) can get FUCKED!
I have an expectation of privacy that what I put in my rubbish bins goes directly to landfill/anonymous recycling. Were the collection company or any other agent for that matter sifting through my rubbish looking for evidence of illegal activity then I think I'd have a case against them for invasion of privacy; as far as I know in most of the western world such activity is considered very dodgy on the part of the investigator if not outright illegal without a warrant.
Yet you would seem to argue I am putting my rubbish into the public domain by putting the wheelie bin on the kerb for collection and later scattering on a public landfill...
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
Have you painted supernatural-3x15.avi on your bin?
The article states iiNet users "made files available". Seems they don't have proof of any actual download taking place.
Furthermore, they probably didn't download the files to fake-check them, or did they?
Is it illegal downunder to offer some bunch of random bits under the name "Family Guy S04E05.avi" ?
It is apparently time to exclude kdawsons stories. This submission doesn't make sense.
I'm assuming you don't reside in the U.S. lucky you in this case.
For those that do live in the US there is no expectation of privacy in regards to your rubbish. California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35
open source sub sim. I might start coding again for this. http://dangerdeep.sourceforge.net/contribute/
A legal group in Australia says that Internet Service Providers allowed 100000 illegal downloads.
What's so hard to understand?
How does one steal an exclusive right to distribute a certain piece of data? Might as well start a Federation Against Change of Archimedes' Constant...
Wait a minute: the BitTorrent client gets a list of IPs from the tracker. But who says the list is entirely correct? Who says that from a certain computer/network behind each of the IPs the file in question has really been there/shared?
Furthermore: if for example you collect a list of IPs and bring them to some law enforcement agency, how do you prove (!) that you didn't make the list of IPs and times up?
Knife makers enabled uncountable murders by stabbing, and other crimes such as robbery. Firearms makers enabled untold deaths, and other crimes such as robbery. Highways have allowed unimaginable death, injury and property loss. The phone system has been used for everything from death and bomb threats to obscene phone calls!!!
How can these be allowed any further?!
Here, have some cheap karma :)
+1 Insightful
It might be the dowloads. Maybe it's a new measurement unit from the stock market, one Dow Jones load or dowload for short. Actually, guessing what the claimed damages will be 100000 times the value of the companies on the Dow Jones index doesn't sound too unlikely ;)
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
an australian legal group says that isps are allowed to have up to 100,000 illegal downloads!!
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Well I initially thought it was about a group taking issue with internet users downloading illegal 100KB files... ;)
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
So what are the Film industries [who are currently chasing a quick buck] going to do when BitTorrent is encrypted end-to-end; which will completely remove ISP's from the equation?
They won't win this case, but they might be able to make a point. However, we're Slashdot, we think in the future and the Execs of these film companies merely think in the past decade and try to profit from that.
- Bring on Truecrypt being globally accepted (for the typical home BitTorrent User)
- Bring on BT Encryption
- Bring on some form Anonymous End Point to BT
For those that do live in the US there is no expectation of privacy in regards to your rubbish.
I'm pretty sure that's universal. It's not that his country protects his "rubbish" so much as that he has really silly expectations based on a lack of familiarity with laws.
Furthermore: if for example you collect a list of IPs and bring them to some law enforcement agency, how do you prove (!) that you didn't make the list of IPs and times up?
If the ISP was willing to co-operate, they'd be able to confirm that the user on the IP address was actively torrenting at that time. Seems like iiNet really aren't willing to co-operate in this situation. Whether that's a good or bad thing is left as an exercise for the reader - I don't live in Australia so I don't give a flying one.
Squirrel!
So you're telling me if you found someone routing through your bins you wouldn't call the police?
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
AFAIK, it's totally legal in the United States for someone to go through your trash. Once you set it out on the curb/in the dumpster, there's nothing you can do about it, other than get someone for trespassing if it happens to be in your yard. The act of going through the trash is not a crime in itself.
This isn't the first time they've gone to court to protect the rights of its customers, and they are the only ISP down under who is (vocally) opposed to the government's "kiddy porn" filter.
This is precisely the reason why I have stuck with iiNet for over 10 years. They don't give a shit what I do with my bandwith, and use the money I pay them for it to invest in improving their network (and my service).
You would almost think that their job was moving bits around or something. The nerve!
Or together with shoes they can be used by people meeting up to plan or commit a crime.
Nike has been abusing this knowledge for years to sell shoe/sock combinations that allow criminals to flee crime scenes at unprecedented speeds!
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
I was at a conference when I overheard the head of AFACT talking to a senior person in APRA... it was a truly scary experience to hear them talk about how they have to "educate the public before they (the public) try to make torrenting legal" and how they want to ensure that they get a cut of every "performance" and they were using the most liberal definitions of what performance meant. They were portraying copyright enforcement to be the highest good. True believers (AND bad dressers!).
I just can't be bothered.
According to AFACT lawyers, ignoring that something goes on (as that ISP probably did) means to authorize, so does that mean that the federal government is authorizing the giant doomsday device I'm secretly building in my basement?
AU Legal Group Says ISP Allowed 100K Illegal Dowloads
Nice to know we have such great editors like kdawson who always keep their eye on the ball.
The issue use to be iiNet's supposed caching of said content. Possibly to do with this patent?
Anthrax is sent through the post, we don't blame the Post Office.
Death threats are sent through the telephone, we don't blame the Telephone Company.
People commit suicide on the railway, we don't blame the Train Company.
While all these things are prevented, or avoided, where possible, it is not the responsibility of the company to decide what an individual does, nor to take the blame when they do it.
Now apply this logic to ISP and a user downloading something, possibly legal, possibly illegal. (If it's inside a passworded RAR file, who the hell knows which is which anyway).
You can't shoot the messenger because the message he delivers says something you don't like.
Media Industry want ISPs to be their police, because they can't find an effective way of doing it themselves. If policing doesn't work, hell let't just blame the police because
there are so many criminals.
What planet do these Media Industry people live on ?
Their sales model is dead, it is no longer an "Industry" as they don't need to make anything anymore. Just whack out the latest clone remake of some decent 70's / 80's movie, and offer DRM free downloads for $1 ...
"I'd buy that for a dollar !!!".
Actually you do have to decrypt the contents, otherwise you have no idea what it is.
If you took videos of your children playing in the backyard and labeled it "Star Wars" and put it on P2P, that's not infringing on George Lucas regardless of what you've called your video.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Is a car manufacturer responsible if the driver of car chooses to drive under the influence?
Is a pencil manufacturer responsible if a students stabs another with a No. 2?
Is a lock maker responsible if a thief picks the lock?
The Australian government and legal system is beset by stupidity of gargantuan proportions. If the movie industry wants ISPs to invest resources and time monitoring activities of subscribers perhaps the ISPs deserve to be compensated for such services.
Hope is the currency of fools
I'm surprised no one has paraphrased the gun lobby motto..........
"ISP's don't illegally download, People do."
...in conclusion, the people will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the internet knowingly allowed trillions of spam emails to traverse its networks, costing corporations billions of dollars annually, and did absolutely nothing to stop it! Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the defendent is guilty of the biggest crime in history.
In other new, the USA has sued Honda Motor Corp. for not discouraging it customers from using its Honda Civic line of cars for trafficking drugs in the USA.
As we know 1 user equals 51,470 people.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/09/04/2148203/How-136-People-Became-7-Million-Illegal-File-Sharers?from=rss
So at most only 2 iiNet customers were recorded and even that's on dodgy unreliable evidence.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
how do you prove (!) that you didn't make the list of IPs and times up?
How do you think they sue the dead and/or people who dont own computers. It's not though competent investigation.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Interesting you should make that observation.
The GP was wrong. Montana never had no speed limit (except, technically, for a short period of time between the court decision and legislative action referenced in the next paragraph). They simply said you could drive as fast as you wanted as long as you stayed "reasonable and prudent". In many jurisdictions, the traffic court judges interpreted that to mean "Don't even think about writing a ticket for anyone going less than a hundred." Nobody, however, would have batted at eye at writing up a semi-trailer for traveling at 90mph. It's not safe.
The Montana situation fell apart when an edge case cropped up. A driver was ticketed for doing 90 mph, was convicted, and appealed. He prevailed at the state supreme court level because the court held that the a speed limit law that only specifed "reasonable and prudent" was simply too vague to be constitutional. The state responded by setting speed limits.
> the police will be dispatched.
commodore64_love, shame on you! How could you have missed the obvious addendum where the device also includes an explosive charge which can be remotely detonated, saving the police and society a lot of trouble!
"Elections for the interim National Council of the Pirate Party Australia are now open.
It is a condition of voting that you agree to the Proposed Constitution v 2.1
A list of candidates can be found here"
Those are digital downloads, so that's 102,400 downloads!
(Let the binary prefix wars commence!)
So those elements you bring up about firearms and knives are immaterial.
The lawyers for the film industry claimed iiNet had done 'nothing' to discourage copyright infringement on its network.
That's all well and good, but what about the copper mines? Clearly the copper mines that extracted the copper used in the wires and traces of those infringers' computers did not lift a finger to prevent copyrighted patterns of ones and zeros from being sent as signals across their copper conductors. We simply cannot have unreasonable copyright enforcement until every company whose products or services touch infringing material is brought to justice.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Someone broke into my house and stole my TV! I'm going to sue the Goverment for allowing the perpetrators to use their roads! I think I'll sue Ford as well for allowing them to use their truck for transporting stolen goods! And Nike for selling them the sneakers they used to sneak into my house!
Why in the world would I call the cops on someone who's taking things that I don't want??
iiNet forward all infringement notifications to the police.
www.hidemyass.com
So you become aware of another vehicle coming your way, and quickly establish that a collision is inevitable, unless you increase your speed significantly, so as to avoid a nasty conclusion... but your engine automatically chokes and you crash... it's rather dark, but you can hear the other driver walking around looking for you, shotgun resting on his shoulder, 'cause he's not happy 'bout your reckless driving, because his ride is now totaled when it would've been easy for you to avoid him, ..., turns out the road was slippery and his brakes weren't up to the task because the sensors on his ride decided that he should slow down gradually instead of abruptly, somehow, ..., anyhoot, you slip out of your car, limping, and try and hide amongst the rubble that were once 4 perfectly road-capable cars and one milk truck, when you get the idea to call emergency services in the hope that help can come before that man finds you, so you dial 911 on your cell, ..., and that's when you hear the gunshot, and fall to your knees, as your phone keeps beeping, because it's in emergency mode now...
Excerpts and in some cases the entirety of books were recently copied. They were written on (GasP) PAPER!
Paper should be more controlled so that it's future content does not violate copyright.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
AFACT still run these offensive, unskippable ads on DVDs equating piracy with stealing purses and carjacking. "Would you steal a car?" Frankly, I would steal the purse of a giant corporation.
Shit I think I was responsible for probably 1% of that myself.
Compared to the US legal and governmental system ours are a bastion of sane and rational thought.
What you dont know is that, 1. This is the first such case in Australia and 2. they've already withdrawn most of their charges against iinet.
The movie studio's are unable to sue individuals for copyright infringement, unlike in the US and if AFACT were to withdraw their case iinet is practically guaranteed a win in a counter suit.
As for internet filtering, this has already died, Parliament has voted against it, twice. Even the right wing zealots (the Nationals) are against it.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The simplest cure would be to organise a complete boycott of cinema's, record stores. Simply don't buy any product. That is more likely to have the right effect. If you'd like to be more militant perhaps browse as usual, take it to the counter and explain why you aren't ever going to buy any of their products again, leaving the store person to ponder their future as they place the product back on the shelf... Be nice, it isn't their fault personally. Smile as you do it.
I wonder if anyone has (inadvertently) bought a fake item from say ebay or somewhere equally likely, and had it delivered by Australia Post. Would they not be as guilty or worse than an ISP who doesn't open your information?
Title to lost items When Australia Post pays a compensation or International Extra Cover claim for the loss of or unrepairable damage to an item, that item becomes the property of Australia Post unless its value exceeds the claim amount paid. (too bad if it is counterfeit - even if it is lost in space - its theirs.) If they get it back subsequent to you being paid insurance compentation by them - they'll SELL it back to you. Subsequent discovery of lost items If Australia Post discovers an item after paying a compensation or International Extra Cover claim for its loss, Australia Post notifies the claimant. The claimant may recover the item provided they repay the claim amount to Australia Post within 30 days of receiving the notice. Australia Post would really want to make sure that item wasn't counterfeit - wouldn't they. Selling counterfeit goods back to the original owner would be a crime. Australia Post better employ a lot of antique, fashion, and all sorts of other experts and get to work opening all those parcels. I really think the ISP is in a less liable position, they don't 'take title' and ownership of the packets if you don't get them and they certainly don't sell them to you after compensating you for their loss.