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BitTorrent Trial Makes Australia's High Court
daria42 writes "Australia's highest court has agreed to hear the long-running BitTorrent case between one of the country's largest ISPs, iiNet, and a group of film and TV studios represented by a copyright organization known as AFACT. The case has the potential to determine once and for all whether Australians who download content via BitTorrent can have their Internet connections disconnected upon the request of the studios. It's lawyers at ten paces!"
When AFACT wanted ISP's to pass on copyright infringement notices to their users, Telstra, Optus etc were happy to roll over and do as they were told. iiNet effectively said "If you have proof of a crime being commited, take it up with the police. We're not here to have our customers harassed just because you say so". AFACT took exception to this, hence this trial
The copyright owner still has the right to distribute his material as he sees fit. You're merely obtaining the material through a side channel. Do you think the copyright owner wakes up one morning and says, "Gee, I'd really like to sell this material to you, but someone downloaded it on the internet. This means I no longer have rights to distribute my material, so I can't sell it to you. Sorry! Woe is me!"
That doesn't mean "copyright infringement" is a good thing, but you're going to have to come up with a better argument than that.
One was written by revolutionaries, the other by lawyers. Guess which one doesn't have guaranteed rights? :P
Between the falling angel and the rising ape
You're exactly right. It is legally just as sacrosant as the US Constitution. Hell, large parts of it were based ~on~ the US Constitution. And indeed you aren't the only one to note that it lacks one of the US Constitution's most well-known features.
The introduction of a formal Bill of Rights in Australia has been a hotly debated jurisprudential topic on and off for much of the last few decades. The arguments against include (broadly speaking), things such as:
- Common law protections and the principles of equity are good enough (there is some truth to this - common law protections in the UK and Australia are reasonably comprehensive); or
- To list or precisely define rights, is to limit them (to those explicitly mentioned). Therefore no Bill of Rights please! (again, I can see some merit in this argument - the rights that are important today might not be important in the future, or rights we haven't even thought of today might become relevant, so if your Bill of Rights is difficult to amend it may become 'out of date' rather quickly)
The arguments for a Bill of Rights are obvious: the same ones that led to the US one. There is also some debate about whether such a Bill would actually be in the Australian Constitution (pretty unlikely IMO), in entrenched legislation ('normal' legislation, but with extra requirements to amend it that make it very difficult to overturn or change), or just a normal Act (with the standard options for repeal and amendment available).
Apologies if you knew all this already - unclear from your post whether you are American or Australian. But could be interesting reading for someone. :)
There is also a difference between copyright infringement and theft, and you know that. For the particular question, the right to exclude acts in largely the same way in both trespassing and copyright infringement. It's also similar in many ways to the right to not be assaulted. If I punch you in the face I have assaulted you, and violated your right to not be assaulted. If someone else punches you in the face, they have also violated your right to not be assaulted. Even if a hundred people punch you in the face, any further assault is going to be a violation of your rights. It's a bit awkward to think of it this way, but you have the right to exclude yourself from acts of assault. If "a bunch of dudes" assault you anyways, you still have the right to exclude people from assaulting you. Now, please don't think I'm saying that copyright infringement is assault or is similar outside of violation of the right not resulting in the loss of the right. Copyright infringement is copyright infringement, and claiming it to be anything else is almost certainly a bad idea.
True, but mathematically, the peers average 1 copy downloaded and 1 copy uploaded, and they are only halfway responsible for that traffic, making them, on average, responsible for the creation of 1 illicit copy
You're going to need a citation for that, as most of the studies I've seen show that those that illegally download end up having more than they could afford to acquire legally. Your wording does seem to indicate a major part of the underlying cause, though, as illicit channels often provide a better, easier product than legitimate channels. If legitimate channels made it is easier for consumers to get what they want, copyright infringement would likely decline or at least not grow as quickly.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I'm totally ignorant of the issues but I still have an opinion.. welcome, this is what Slashdot is for :)
How we know is more important than what we know.
1) When you download using bittorrent you aren't also leeching but also seeding. Leeching means downloading something without uploading much/anything in place.
Furthermore, despite the fact that all music is available to me through illegal channels, I still buy loads of music, even more so then before it was feasible to download anything.
The ability to access loads of music has given me the opportunity to sample a lot more music then radio alone allowed.
2) Piracy will deprive you of exclusivity to distribute, but so does broadcasting.
3) Broadcasting means people have access to your work beyond your control.