Australian ISP iiNet Walks Out of Piracy Warning System Talks

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Torrent Freak: "A leading Australian Internet service provider has pulled out of negotiations to create a warning notice scheme aimed at reducing online piracy. iiNet, the ISP that was sued by Hollywood after refusing to help chase down alleged infringers, said that it can't make any progress with rightsholders if they don't make their content freely available at a reasonable price. The ISP adds that holding extra data on customers' habits is inappropriate and not their responsibility."

Comments

Good on them.

[crafty.munchkin]

As an Aussie, I approve of them making a stand against how everyone in this country is ripped off by all the media outlets - especially when our dollar is worth more than the US dollar. And as for making us wait 3-6 months because they don't want us watching... well, the internet tore down that time barrier as well.

Re:Good on them.

[lilrobbie]

These guys have been doing this for years as well. I actually have kept overbuying my broadband allocations (I use probably 20% a month) simply because they have been so honest and decent. Good service... and they have gone to bat for my rights every time. iiNet is changing the shape of Aussie ISPs, doing a wonderful job keeping Telstra/Optus and co. honest. The others see iiNet back out, and suddenly realise you can say no to the media industry on unrealistic or overly power-hungry requests.

I don't work for them... just a very satisfied consumer of their services.

Re:Good on them.

[erroneus]

A US ISP would find itself destroyed just in legal fees. To survive such an assault, the 'free[dom] lawyers groups' would have to be standing by to take up the defense of any rebelious ISP in the US.

It would all get real ugly real fast. And in the US, media companies are often also ISPs or are very closely connected to them as many offer TV services as well as telephone and internet. So any ISP who fits that profile would find themselves unable to offer TV services shortly thereafter.

Re:Good on them.

[Tsingi]

And TekSavvy is currently refusing to give up 1100 names in a tentative media lawsuit.
Glad to see this comment, TekSavvy is the Canadian iiNET.

Good news!

[It took my meds]

I'm so glad I'm with iiNet; they take a stand for me as a consumer. I don't pirate anything, nor do I view content that is outside the norms of adult society, however my browsing habits are not other people's business - especially corporate entities!

Re:Good news!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm so glad I'm with iiNet; they take a stand for me as a consumer. I don't pirate anything, nor do I view content that is outside the norms of adult society, however my browsing habits are not other people's business - especially corporate entities!

No disrespect intended, but there isn't anything special about that. You are just like the vast majority of other internet users. It's high time that the media companies and the government get that through their head.

Should everyone be "tracked like an animal" on the internet just because some people abuse it? No. Same goes for the advertisers who think tracking everybody is their god given right.

To the coming onslaught of obnoxiousness..

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't live here, in Australia - you don't understand.

We get gouged, delayed or denied on a lot.

Last week I bought a Steinberg Cubase 7 upgrade. A DOWNLOAD product - I paid $199. It's $149 to US customers. That's a typical situation for us. It's always the same story in this country. The distributors/retailers (whether they be television channels, bricks and mortar sellers or whatever), they control the price through publisher->retailer relationship and that means we get it when they want, for the price they want and fuck you if you don't want to pay for their shitty overheads.

If I want games off steam, often,I have to pay up to 90 US for a release title. Not steam's fault.

If I wanted to watch the final season of sopranos legitimately (and believe me, I tried), I saw something like 2 episodes, then it went away for about a month, came back for another couple of episodes and it was gone again. Typical television patronage, here. My response? What am I supposed to do? Hang out for the tv guide, every week? Sorry, you created my desire to watch your program and I'm now going to watch it.

If I want to watch English Premier League games online (because I can't afford the $70-80 a month for all inclusive pay tv) - I'm only able to watch a few games of someone elses choice through their online service because like so many things online, currently, the content just goes to whoever will front for it. Telstra own the rights to online rugby league coverage in this country - they do next to NOTHING with it.

I could go on with hours of fragments of information and complaints on the situation and I'm sure the grass is green here in many ways - but it is a little frustrating to have to constantly circumvent the legitimate purchase method (whether it be through downloading the product for free, or buying it at a grey import seller) - just so I can't feel like a chump for paying twice the price everybody else on earth does.

And let's get something straight - I PREFER to buy. Steam completely and utterly destroyed piracy for me. I love it. But what I don't love is how the shitheads running unprofitable stores contributing fuck all to my gaming life necessitate that I can't buy a game for the price retailers in the rest of the world sell it for.

Re:The content

[serviscope_minor]

How does that work out?

Not laden with ungodly amounts of DRM and silly timing restrictions?

The trouble is that not only is pirated content free, it's also better, because of the lack of DRM, and lack of silly timing restrictions.

If you torrent, you get it *now* and can put it on a media server, transcode it for your phone, pause, skip the ads (as it were), etc etc.

If you pay, not only do you have to wait a lot longer, you also get a worse product for your troubles. I once purchased a DVD of Castle which was laden with some lame attempt at extra copy protection. Basically, they split the DVD files up into teeny slices. The results it that the DVD player would occasionally pause for a visible fraction of a second between some of the odder transitions and the forward and backwards seeking wouldn't work properly.

Nice.

So, I did wait, and I did pay, and I got treated like a complete crook and sold a heap of crap which was a far worse experience than if I had downloaded it.