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."

Comments

Pax

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Pax

[Dan541]

Holden repeatedly allows their vehicles to be used in drug running, armed robberies and abductions by failing to control what the vehicles are used for.

Re:Pax

[rtb61]

Well in this case it is even more interesting, they are not just trying to claim copyright theft on their works but on the title of their works. They claimed 29,914, hmm, did they download and validate that those titles as listed where in fact the works they claim to have ownership or did they just look at the title and pretend it was evidence. Lets see 97,942 instances even music at three minutes a piece that is still 4,800 hours of works they claim to a checked and confirmed as their content.

So the Federation Against Copyright Theft claim that iiNet has not monitored and censored their users, well I should hope not, as that would be an illegal and criminal act and iiNet would rightfully be sued for attempting to do so by their users and, of course prosecuted under law. In Australia it is a criminal act for companies to monitor telecommunications for any reason other than strictly limited checking of quality of service, not to be recorded and, not to be censored.

There are even privacy laws in place to protect employees from excess invasions of privacy, let alone customers and of course non-customers, those people the customers are communicating with who have no connection with the company providing telecommunication services.

OMG they did nothing

[Xiph]

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!

Re:OMG they did nothing

[ZarathustraDK]

Roads! ROADS!
Roads fascilitate the transport of untold amounts illegal and/or dangerous materials including : drugs, immigrants, weapons and WMD's.
Close the roads!

Obligatory Car Analogy...

[tnok85]

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.

Re:Obligatory Car Analogy...

[lordandmaker]

Wait a minute, you can actually prove tangible losses from people speeding.

You can? In the UK it's what keeps local government afloat.

How far does the liability go?

[misnohmer]

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?

Re:How far does the liability go?

[Monolith1]

Is there such a thing as privacy down under?

Snigger...

Re:Er, well spotted.

[Thanshin]

Why go to BT and phones?

Just present examples of the exact same ISP letting people buy anything illegal by mail.

In a movie court, the handsome and manly lawyer would open a portable in front of the judge, connect to a "illegal dvd sale by postal mail" and order 100.000 movies.

New Zealand faces similar problems :(

[Anonymous Coward]

The New Zealand equivalent to AFACT are creatively called NZFACT, and they said that they want to be able to punish people based on accusations of infringement

"[NZFACT] envisaged ISPs would act on infringement notices generated automatically by copyright holders, who would identify infringers by tracking traffic on file-sharing sites." -- Creative Freedom Foundation

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.

Obligatory phone analogy

[LKM]

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!

Dear Australia

[noundi]

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.

Re:As an iiNet customer...

[cjfs]

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..

By "stop the behaviour" you mean stand up and contest the corruption of your legal system which leads to these sort of lawsuits, right?

You Know...

[Greyfox]

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?

Culpable Manufacturers

[RulerOf]

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!

Responsibility ...

[daveime]

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 !!!".