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."

Comments

Re:Wow

[timmarhy]

This had NOTHING to do with steven conroy.

i'm very suprised actually. even though iinet's arguement was solid - why should they spend money and lose customers policing someone elses copyrights. usually the music and film industry weasles find a way to win these things.

it is too early to celebrate though, there will be an appeal no doubt where the music industry try get a judge more inline with their thinking.

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[mjwx]

1 Minister, slightly used, in good cond. 8 months left in office. $15,000 ONO