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Aussie Film Industry Appeals ISP Copyright Case
schliz writes "The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) has appealed a Federal Court judgement that this month exonerated ISP iiNet for its subscribers' copyright-infringing activities. In the widely publicised case, AFACT sought to penalize iiNet for its users having made 100k illegal downloads. A judge ruled that 'mere provision of access to internet is not the means to infringement,' but AFACT now claims the judgement 'left an unworkable online environment for content creators and content providers' and 'represents a serious threat to Australia's digital economy.'"
change the law so that your business plan works.
an unworkable online environment for content creators and content providers
Boohoo. They wanted someone else to do their dirty work for them, but now they have to actually use the legal system as intended which requires a great deal more effort. Cry me a river that they don't get a short cut to justice.
. . . Copyright Theft?
This goes beyond the typical slashdot positional debate on whether or not violations of copyright are considered theft or infringement. I would propose a new clever acronymic name:
Australian Federation Against Respect for Copyright. That would make them AFARC which would describe their organization and efforts a lot better.
Mr Mew Caugh quoted to the national farmers federation that "steak knives present a serious threat to the bovine community"
At least in Australia. Well worth reading the last link, (http://www.itnews.com.au/News/167984,analysis-five-ways-afact-lost-the-iinet-case.aspx.).
A threat to the digital economy? Ok, let's ban computers! They make it trivially easy to copy intellectual property! They are a threat to the digital economy! And the Internet! It's a threat to the digital economy!
"...the judgement 'left an unworkable online environment for content creators and content providers' and 'represents a serious threat to Australia's digital economy.'"
I believe that would be your business model that did that. That model died the moment the industry went from vinyl to magnetic tape.
Anyone besides me ever wonder why Sony sells blank CDs and DVDs, then complains about infringement?
Here is the nail in the coffin, Sony. (From Wikipedia)
"Although there were other magnetic tape cartridge systems, the Compact Cassette became dominant as a result of Philips's decision in the face of pressure from Sony to license the format free of charge."
You try and figure it out. I'm still at a complete loss to explain this. Were the Sony execs really THAT short-sighted? And still?
This website ShockSeat cuts through the bull of each party to what they really support. I hope to show bi-partisan responses to issues that people may not otherwise know such as Internet Filtering Scheme.
If you wish to contribute, I need people to demand the parties to come clear on issues in the survey I have given them. So far, only 1 of 26 parties have answered and even then, I'm adding all the listed issues.
If anything, I hope it's a great guide to interested voters who are concerned about certain issues and don't want to wade through the sales pitch.
The only digital economy that I can see AFACT being interested in is propagating its anti-competitive, artificial markets that lets Australian users get content that was released 6 months ago in the US, late, or not at all. In fact piracy has helped improve Australian free to air television by encouraging TV stations to screen popular TV series as soon as they possibly can so that pirates don't need to actually download those shows. A lot of the reason behind people in Australia downloading shows is because they just are not available to view in Australia for months on end if at all. It doesn't make it right, but its one of the big reasons it happens.
All we want studios is to be able to legally obtain content in our Australian region when it is released in another region like the UK or US in a timely manner without all the local market bull-s*@t that you put us through time and time again so you can make more money by charging us more when we could buy it in the US or something where they have real market competition for cheaper.
Of course there will always be the bunch of people that infringe copyright that just want the stuff for free, and its these people I have no sympathy for, as its used as an excuse by content creators to screw us over time and time again as they seek their almighty dollars.
"The court found large scale copyright infringements, that iiNet knew they were occurring, that iiNet had the contractual and technical capacity to stop them and iiNet did nothing about them," he said.
Were they asked by some authority to give some information about some users and they did not comply ?
Or did they simply not pro actively hunt some customers ?
If it was the second, I do not see how this can constitute a case.
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
I don't remember a single instance where a Postal Service, a Telephone Company or a Bank were asked to behave in this manner ?
Fine, monitor the transactions being made, report them to the concerned party upon presentation of a search warrant or other legal document. But an ISP should NOT be judge, jury and executioner, they should only ever be a "witness" / "informant" (delete as appropriate).
All these companies provide is a service, and they are only legally / morally obliged to report wrongdoings. They are not required to go in "Jack Bauer" style and take out the dirty pirates. That's the job of the legal system.
Since when is it the role of the courts to arbitrarily legislate to protect the failing business models of certain corporations?
Perhaps the answer to the problem of teenagers dropping bricks from motorway and railway bridges is to sue Tetris.
Step 1: From a conspicuously untraceable location, have somebody you trust mail you a particularly vile specimen of pornography.
Step 2: Immediately complain to the police.
Step 3: Sue the Post Office for conveying this distressing item to your house, where no doubt it was seen by children, kittens and the church officials you happened to have as guests.
Step 4: Complain about the terrible damage to the tender sensibilities of said guests and damage to your impeccable reputation for moral rectitude.
Step 5: Profit!
I'm moving to Australia, where I'll soon be rich beyond my wildest dreams of avarice...at least until some specimen of the local wildlife bites, stings, chomps or otherwise envenoms me and I die screaming in agony.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Tell him he's dreamin'
Tell him to get stuffed
I am not stubborn. I am right!
Although I can understand your confusion on the matter, I think this is the thread you were looking for...
http://idle.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/19/1514258
...100 THOUSAAAAAND!
Copyright theft happens when someone steals your copyright. It makes sense, but I don't think it has anything to do with what AFACT does. It's not exactly commonplace for people to steal such things.
To be honest the internet is a threat to the digital economy --------- of the middle men, those that contribute nothing but, hmm, bullshit. The publishers who spend their lives lying about the quality of the content they 'publish', who produce (not create) some of the worst content imaginable (I not sure that word should be associated with the content they produce) where they pay peanuts to the best performing casting couch specialists, the endless parade of one hit drunken drug addled performance artists.
What does this work or those people actually contribute to society, is their work to be considered a useful art, or should their narcissist sociopathic behaviour become a part of shameful history. Their willingness to corrupt everything they touch, law, politics, society, and even children and they believe they are worth protecting, that their ability to exploit and distort human mores to fit their own psychosis is of valuable to society.
So will the digital economy be better with or without them, how about the real economy, the one of humanity and the planets natural resources, can they continued to be wasted upon this groups their very public excesses, you could not find a group that consumes and pollutes more than them.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
> It's not exactly commonplace for people to steal such things.
Oh, some of us are fairly sure that the past behavior of the record labels, when they controlled music publicity almost exclusively (and quite probably illegally) so that artists didn't feel they had much choice other than to sign their copyrights away, could very easily be called "copyright theft".
In the US, at least, the artist in some cases is able to take his copyright back.
Disclaimer: While I am an Australian law student, I've only read the summary of the decision, (c'mon, it's 200 pages), nor have I studied IP Law.
However, I do have a year of Law school behind me, so:
- Australian law makes a distinction between findings of fact (i.e. John stabbed Mary) and findings of law (i.e. law x says stabbing is illegal). Findings of law can be appealed (you can argue the judge misinterpreted the law), but it's *much* harder to appeal a finding of fact. AIUI, there aren't many findings of fact in this case: the Justice found that Malone was a credible witness as a matter of fact, but the rulings on which the case was founded (i.e. that BitTorrent is the means of infringement, as opposed to the internet) are all findings of law.
* tl;dr => Most of the ruling could be overturned on appeal.
- The case was decided by a single judge of the Federal Court. That means that, IIRC, it will be appealed to the full court of the Federal Court (3+ judges). From that, it could be appealed to the High Court. (The highest court in Australia; equivalent to the Supreme Court in the US)
* tl;dr => The appeal may not be the last, there could be another.
- I'm not going to venture an opinion on the outcome of the appeal; I don't know enough. I also haven't been able to find AFACT's grounds of appeal; if I can I might be able to shed some more light on the possible success.
* tl;dr => Who knows what will happen?
- Ultimately, AFACT and their lobbyists will likely convince the politicians to change the law, whatever the outcome. This will probably suck - Aussie Communications Ministers traditionally do an average to poor job regardless of political persuasion. (examples include: mandatory filtering, "World's Greatest Luddite")
* tl;dr => What ever happens, we're probably screwed because of politics.
To be honest the internet is a threat to the digital economy --------- of the middle men, those that contribute nothing but, hmm, bullshit.
Contribute nothing? Perhaps, but consider the following (selected at random from the US Chamber of Commerce website):
So yeah, you could make an argument that such companies contribute nothing, or make nothing, but you'd have to agree there's an awful lot of money and jobs (and corresponding political influence) tied up in those numbers, and without those companies doing the nothing that they do so well, a chunk of the economy goes poof.
WTF is "copyright theft"? What, does someone break into my apartment, rifle through my stuff and steal a copyright and flog it for a hundred dollars down the pub and leave me without a copyright?
Athy, athier, athiest.
if that's a reason for appeal, then if the court case had or will go the other way, then this should be appealed because the AFICT demands creates an unworkable environment for the internet industry. And anyone wanting to use it to disseminate their own work (like patches from Microsoft...).
Everybody knows, that without the PC, the user would not infringe. I think they should go after computer resellers. They are the ones guilty of providing the means of infringing. Or how about the harddisk manufacturers ? Without storage infringement would be short termed.
Yeah, there's a reason the Aussie film industry is suffering. But it's because so many of its films are depressing arthouse stuff that no one thinks of in association with the word 'entertainment'. Consequently, I sincerely doubt there have been thousands of downloads of Australian movies.
That money is not created, it is bled from the rest of the economy, a parasitical existence is not a contributory existence, they neither feed, house, clothe, heal, transport or produce useful usable goods. Plus, please do not confuse the exploited creators with the exploitative publishers. The creative commons, openly self published on the internet is a far more valuable and inclusive resource, where content is a participatory experience.
So profit and greed is what you claim as their one saving grace, hmm , drug dealers and pimps could also fit exactly that same profile and oddly enough they are equally destructive of society and as it turns out, they are also closely associated with the content publishing industry, now why do I not find that a surprise.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
That's BULLSHIT. If anything it is the AFACT (a fag) who is destroying the Australian digital economy such shameless people!
These "content providers" should realize that publishing content is like releasing oxygen in the atmosphere.
Imagine a farmer that wants to profit from the oxygen his plants release. He could build a greenhouse to capture the oxygen and sell bottled oxygen to customers that agree to pay his price. But that would need investment in the greenhouse and the oxygen bottling equipment. Instead of investing money to get a profit, he releases the oxygen in the atmosphere and lobbies to get a law forcing people have oxygen meters installed in their lungs, so they can pay for the oxygen they consume.
The entertainment industry is like that greedy farmer. To get a profit from their creations, they should invest in an infrastructure of theaters so they can charge entrance to allow people to see their shows. Instead of this they want to release their products in the internet and demand that other people take charge of metering how their products are consumed.
The publishers who spend their lives lying about the quality of the content they 'publish', who produce (not create) some of the worst content imaginable...where they pay peanuts to the best performing casting couch specialists, the endless parade of one hit drunken drug addled performance artists.
What does this work or those people actually contribute to society, is their work to be considered a useful art, or should their narcissist sociopathic behaviour become a part of shameful history. Their willingness to corrupt everything they touch, law, politics, society, and even children.....
It is lame to argue that what you steal has no value. It is lamer still to argue that you are less corrupt than those you steal from.
2008 was particularly rich in movies with impeccable geek cred:
The Dark Knight. Iron Man. Wall-E...
These were the torrents the geek relentlessly sought out and sucked down.
The geek knows what it costs to produce and market these films. The geek knows that there is only one Pixar and only one Andrew Stanton.
HELP! HELP! I'm suing Dell, their machine allows me to play kiddie pron! HELP! HELP! I'm suing Imation, their blanks allow me to write pirated DVDs! HELP! HELP! I'm suing MS 'cos their O/S, allows software to be written that can be used to circumvent the DRM protection on digital media!
STFU! Whinging maggots! ISPs are no different from the electricity company. Would you sue the local water supplier 'cos they supply water to the kiddie fiddlers and DVD pirates, to keep them alive and doing what they do? No! AFACT piss off and stop making dicks of yourselves!
The internet was developed for the free sharing of information. Businesses piggybacking off of that need to recognize this. If they want a medium to transmit their wares to customers where they can fully control what is going on then they need to INVENT THEIR OWN G**DAMED NETWORK!!!!!
The so-called Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) is actually an not Australian at all. It is controlled by the Singapore office of the MPAA and funded from Los Angeles. AFACT has no formal or informal mechanism to allow interested Australian's to join.
To quote Justice Cowdroy from Roadshow Films v iiNet:
Yes, but this work has as much purpose as the USSR employing people in factories just to give them a job (which it did, way back when). It just distracts people from more important things and wastes time and money.
Yet Another Tech Blog
(but so much more, including game and movie reviews)
http://yanteb.peasantoid.org
When will the IT Industry realise the content industry as the biggest threat to innovation of business models? Innovation is what creates wealth in business and any business that stifles innovation should be treated as a threat to all businesses.
Indirectly the content industry is a threat to every Technology professional's livelihood. Altruism aside, any legal change that enforces the status quo threatens the deployments of new technology in business models. IT has never been about 'doing old things the same old way'.
IT is a behemoth compared to the Music industry, I don't understand how or why we've let them push us around for this long.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
So yeah, you could make an argument that such companies contribute nothing, or make nothing, but you'd have to agree there's an awful lot of money and jobs (and corresponding political influence) tied up in those numbers, and without those companies doing the nothing that they do so well, a chunk of the economy goes poof.
Sorry, even if you accept the arguments made by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that Intellectual Property is economically important (which I am inclined to do, although I did not read the whole page thoroughly so I have my doubts as to whether or not I accept the conclusions they reach from that starting point), it does not follow that the middlemen (such as record companies) add anything valuable to the economy. If the middlemen contribute nothing, then they actually remove value from the economy. Value that could be better used to create more IP.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Hey, thanks! The single most interesting and informative post thus far.
"Get off the cross - we need the wood" - Tori Amos
Forget the Internet and the blackjack! Eh, forget the whole thing....
It is very common for copyright to be stolen, 100% of copyrights that exist today have been or will be stolen. It is a right that belongs to the people, restricted to the creator for a limited time. Every instance where that restriction has been extended is a theft of the copyright of the people.
While were at it, lets make the telephone company responsible for phone fraud, and the postal service responsible for mail fraud,,, none of these silly "common carrier" exemptions should apply!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I've been reading through the threads here in my usual shallow manner, and I can't seem to stop reading AFACT as AFAICT. Thus "AFACT is an organisation..." becomes "As far as I can tell is an organisation...". I just have to give up.
man, I feel like mold.
should their narcissist sociopathic behaviour become a part of shameful history
The history of the human race is an ongoing tale of shifting tides of exploitation.
Humans exploit anything that can't or won't fight back. Justice is not something humans value; it is something humans do only when forced.
If AFACT wins, then wouldn't it be too risky, from a legal perspective, to run an ISP without a large staff of employees screening every single user's activities to make sure they're not infringing someone's copyright? Sounds to me like AFACT winning would be an even larger threat to Australia's digital economy (no ISPs or ISPs charging an arm + a leg + either the other hand or other foot == no digital economy) than AFACT losing.
It's time, once again, for the ObHeinlein:
There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or a corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years , the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped ,or turned back, for their private benefit.
-- The Judge in "Life-Line"
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
That money is not created, it is bled from the rest of the economy ... please do not confuse the exploited creators with the exploitative publishers ... profit and greed is what you claim as their one saving grace ...
LOL. I don't know whether you're a troll, having a bad day, or just can't read. In no way did I claim anything, or espouse any point of view. I merely pointed out that the sum total of what you find so easy to dismiss represents a huge and growing chunk of the economy (i.e., real money and real jobs). Anybody living in the real world knows that when there's money at stake, people sit up and listen to the stakeholders.
My sentiments are inline with yours, but I'd be a fool, as you would be, to think that anyone in power gives a damn about advancing noble causes or has time to listen to vague, handwavy notions of participitory experiences. Their responsibilities are, for better or worse, to maintain things the way they are because everyone is depending on it. And those figures and words I cited? Those are echoed all the way up the food chain. The conversation you're trying to have is just background noise.
You know what else represents a good chunk of our economy? Financial services. Those folks don't make anything either. So if you want to rail against real exploitation, that would be a good place to start. Good luck with that, too.
'left an unworkable online environment for content creators and content providers'
Obvious bullshit. “Content creators“ like moby, nine inch nails, and many others, made tons of money online. By understanding the differing physical properties of bitspace.
But what is a content “provider”? What does that actually mean? Aren’t we all by definition “content providers”? (Ok, I’m kidding. I know that it means nothing an is just a line of bullshit.)
Let’s translate this:
'In this space you call reality, it’s impossible to keep up our fantasy business model. And it has also become impossible for us to extort artists with it.'
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
They should change the law so that at least one business plan works for an in demand product.
I believe that working business plan is called "sell DVDs".
Their main complaint is that they want access to a new distribution channel without risk. This is the same thing that the credit card companies wanted when they successfully lobbied to change the U.S. bankruptcy laws to turn all the uncollateralized debt they had outstanding into collateralized debt. They could instead have refrained from offering credit cards to unemployed college students and other sub-prime credit risks, but instead they had the laws changed, and that led directly to the current credit crisis, which has impacted the world economy.
Well, to heck with them; if they can't live with the facts of the current situation on line, they obviously can take their ball and go play elsewhere. This will leave a market opportunity for people to come in and displace them as content providers, but no one every guaranteed them that they wouldn't be commoditized at some point if they enetered that distribution channel (how different -- really -- is reality TV from some of the stuff people are posting on YouTube for free?).
-- Terry
It's actually good they are appealing because If it's denied or if the Highest Court in Australia tells them to get F'ed again in court ... game over
Plus even though a countries laws aren't applicable to each other it should provide some hearty material to cases around the world to crush the bastids ;)
'left an unworkable online environment for content creators and content providers' and 'represents a serious threat to Australia's digital economy.'"
BULLSHIT.
The only "unworkable online evironment" is of thier own making. The publishing companies are criminal. They rip off the artist, then relaese the works on resitricted formats at stupid prices.
The want the laws changed so THEY DONT HAVE TO. Well fuck right off.
These publishers need to seriously rethink thier sales models and stop maing the consumer the enemy becuase that is what they are doing!
iiNet's stated after it won the last case, the industry needs a new marketing model. Now AFACT is trying to fight iinet with their own words?? I got a good feeling that iinet will not only win, but have new grounds to counter sue. My money is on the underdog on this battle!
- They are greedy stupid arseholes...
.
Voting up, Voting down - If I really gave a fuck about your approval or not, I'd come and ask you.
That sounds an awful lot like a broken window fallacy.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife