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Landmark Ruling Gives Australian ISPs Safe Harbor
omnibit writes "Today, the Federal Court of Australia handed down its ruling in favor of the country's third largest ISP, iiNet. The case was backed by some of the largest media companies, including 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. They accused iiNet of approving piracy by ignoring thousands of infringement notices. Justice Cowdroy said that the 'mere provision of access to internet is not the means to infringement' and 'copyright infringement occurred as result of use of BitTorrent, not the Internet... iiNet has no control over BitTorrent system and [is] not responsible for BitTorrent system.' Many Internet providers had been concerned that an adverse ruling would have forced themselves to police Internet traffic and comply with the demands of copyright owners without any legislative or judicial oversight."
What I liked about this ruling was just how much they won it.
The judge said that Safe Harbour provisions did apply to the ISP... but they weren't needed because they only applied if the ISP explicit approved that user activity (which they do not)... and any infringement notices from the studios didn't need to be sent to consumers due to the Privacy Act (iiNet sends all infringement notices to the police instead)... and in any case the sending of infringement notices and subsequent banning etc was not considered a valid copyright prevention mechanism.
So yeah, they wiped the floor with them.
we still have a proposed Internet Filter, no R18+ rating for video games, and a South Australian government that passed a law saying that every person commenting about the election online must provide their real name and postcode. We have a long way to go yet.
Um, it's Australia, and the Federal Court in Australia.
Australia doesn't _have_ a Supreme Court, they have a High Court.
So, no, this probably isn't over yet.
There is still the High Court. The Supreme Courts in Australia only have jurisdiction over State matters.
Australia doesn't _have_ a Supreme Court, they have a High Court.
We have eight (8) Supreme Courts actually. But yes, you are correct this is the first instance case before a single Judge in the Federal Court. Appeal would usually lie to the Full Court (of the FedCrt) and then to the High Court of Australia.
Its the supreme court after all. I think that says it all.
maybe ACTA will be nexT?
Sorry, no it wasn't the supreme court. If you are an non-Australian you will find a more complete explanation here. If on the other hand you are a fellow Aussie and you think that we have a single supreme court I respectfully suggest that you have watched way too many hours of imported American TV shows. Stop it!
The case was held in the federal court - each state within Australia has it's own court system the highest court within each state is the state's own supreme court. As this seems to have been a case with respect to federal law it was brought before the federal court.
In any case there is an avenue for appeal. Leave may be sought for the case to be heard by the High Court which has appellate jurisdiction over the federal court and all states supreme court. This is not overly likely however as the high court rarely accepts matters and the majority of its sittings are to determine constitutional matters.
The next step in this process for AFACT is more likely to lobby the idiots in Canberra for new laws.
Andy Warhol got it right / Everybody gets the limelight
Andy Warhol got it wrong / Fifteen minutes is too long.
You can read the decision for yourself here.
Here's a timeline of the case. Also the full ruling has been posted online.
I know you all speak English, but does 'Supreme' mean something different in Australia?
Each state and territory as a Supreme Crt, which is the highest court for that state and territory. The federal court system is separate and deals with federal law (eg. copyright law). The highest court in Australia is the High Court of Australia, to which one can appeal from the state Supreme Crts or from the Federal Crt.
Does that make it any clearer?
The High Court really only deals with interpretation of the constitution
While this is true of the German Bundesverfassungsgericht, it is completely false in regard to the High Court of Australia. And yes, IAAAL.
Any point of law, whether it arises out if the Constitution or not, can be decided by HCA.
In Australia judicial and policing roles are generally not politically appointments (with some exceptions) and the influence of corporations is very limited.
In cases like this it is more a case of convincing the government to change the law. Unfortunately this is something AFACT will probably find relatively easy to do with our current Federal government particularly the Senator Conroy as the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.
Double plus bonus on the ruling, not only does it set precedent but also "The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft representing the film industry, has been ordered to pay iiNet's costs", loser pays in Australian Civil courts, which is why they never played around with suing end users. You lose one case, you lose them and then have to pay everyone's court costs.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen