Australian ISP Offers Pro-bono Legal Advice To Accused Pirates

New submitter thegarbz writes: As covered previously, after losing a legal battle against Dallas Buyers Club and Voltage Pictures the Federal Court of Australia asked ISP iiNet to hand over details of customers allegedly downloading the movie The Dallas Buyers Club. iiNet has now taken the unprecedented move to offer pro-bono legal advice to all of its customers targeted over piracy claims. "It is important to remember that the Court's findings in this case do not mean that DBC and Voltage's allegations of copyright infringement have been proven," Ben Jenkins, financial controller for iiNet wrote. Also, as part of the ruling the court will review all correspondence sent to alleged copyright infringers in hopes to prevent the practice of speculative invoicing. Unless it can be proven exactly how much and and with how many people a film was shared the maximum damages could also be limited to the lost revenue by the studio, which currently stands at $10AU ($7.90US) based on iTunes pricing.

Comments

Anyone surprised?

[Opportunist]

Who'd you side with? Your paying customer or some shady business that does nothing for you except cause you work without compensation?

And this is why...

[Roskolnikov]

I cringe when I consider how this would have played out with Comcast as the ISP and Universal as the media company... oh, wait....

Thanks to iinet

[Stonefish]

Not only is this the right thing to do, by attempting to stop a shakedown by a company with low moral standards, it's a great marketing ploy. Internode put a few ads on the mainstream media and get the best outcome. Australian ISP clients move to iiNet to demonstrate that this is the behavior that you want to see. I've already voted with my money and done exactly this and have been really happy with the end result. (My download speeds have also improved (ipv6 as well)

You Lose! Good day, sir!

[countSudoku()]

It's all there, black and white, clear as crystal! You tried to sue a person for downloading a movie that they were never going to watch UNLESS they got it for free! You bumped into the Intertubes which now have to be washed and sterilized, so you get nothing! You lose! Good day, sir!

That's important here in Canada, too

[msobkow]

Although the copyright holders can send out threatening letters here in Canada, they're not allowed to collect the thousands of dollars that they do for "infringement" in the US. They're only allowed to collect *actual* damages.

So if you're a "leech" and just download without sharing later, they can only claim the loss of one copy. If you shut off your torrent after uploading to a 1:1 ratio, they can only claim loss of one copy.

It really takes the wind out of their sails and their idle threats if you know that fact and can respond to them appropriately. Their claims that you could be subject to "thousands" of dollars of damages is absolute BULLSHIT under Canadian law.

Re:That's important here in Canada, too

[walkswithwolf]

Actually it gets better here in Canada.

To collect any money or get any information about you from your ISP, they have to sue you. If you get sued and found guilty, you pay "actual" damages or up to $5000 for all infringements, depending on the judge. However, with the way the law is worded, if you get sued for copyright infringement, it resets the clock, so to speak.

As an example, if you are sharing Sony music albums and Disney movies, and Sony takes you to court and wins, Disney cannot sue you, Sony cannot sue you again for missed infringements, etc. They can only sue you for new infringements and the clock resets again.

The exception is copyright infringement for commercial purposes, but then the copyright holder has to prove commercial intent.

PS: yes, the ISP is obligated by law to pass infringement notices to the end users, and those notices are being abused asking for settlements using US style "damages". That is one loophole in the Canadian system that our Canadian government left open, possibly on purpose.

Wholesale prices

[Citizen of Earth]

the lost revenue by the studio, which currently stands at $10AU ($7.90US) based on iTunes pricing.

The studio should only be entitled to recover the wholesale price, which is presumably somewhere around half of the retail price.

Re:Wholesale prices

[QuasiSteve]

Why stop there? Why not say they should only be entitled to recover the fair market price?

Is it in theatres now? Good, the price of one admission, then.
Wait, it's in theatres in Bangladesh? The price of one admisssion there, then.

Is it on sale in iTunes? Whatever that is, then.

Is it on Netflix? Subscription cost / subscription duration * movie duration ~= $8.99 / 2,635,200 * 7200 ~= $0.03 (rounded up, being generous)

Or, given that the market in question - that is to say, 'pirates' - decide that the fair price is $0, they should be able to recover exactly that.

Insert further arguments to make the case that they should actually be paying the 'pirates' ;)

Re:It may not last.

[DeSigna]

They're being bought by the second worst ISP in Australia: http://www.itnews.com.au/News/401960,iinet-board-seriously-concerned-about-culture-post-tpg-buy.aspx, http://www.afr.com/technology/iinet-shareholders-hit-out-at-board-over-tpg-m2-takeover-battle-20150507-ggvyow.

They've already destroyed several large players in the infrastructure space (PIPE Networks for example, AAPT is in progress), and now one of the highest ranked customer service ISPs (if not the highest) is about to be consumed in a primarily cash-based deal, leaving the original team with no control or say in the combined company.

There's little chance of TPG allowing anything to continue that costs more than the bare minimum. Where you previously had people who knew their stuff proactively supporting many-thousand-$-per-month corporate fibre WANs and the like, you now get a bored dude from the Philippines working through a residential ADSL support flowchart, he wouldn't know a VLAN if it was trunked right up his bum.

iiNet/Internode/Westnet/etc are the last service-oriented consumer ISP in the marketplace. Their legal defence of their common-carrier status and their continued protection of customers is just one example. It would be a shame if they were absorbed by a company that is their exact opposite.

(What's the worst ISP though? I reserve that title for Dodo).

Re:It may not last.

[thegarbz]

Best / Worst is a title that needs to be combined with a metric that you are looking at. Me I would rate TPG as the best ISP in Australia.

They have absolutely SHIT customer service.

They were however the first to offer unlimited internet, the first to offer bundling of phones so I could get out of the loop of paying Telstra for a service I don't use or paying over inflated naked DSL prices, and while their customer service was downright atrocious (poor idiot on the line, more than 6 weeks without internet access due to their fault) they not only refunded me the cost of the service but also paid for the cost of my temporary wireless connection.

I have a choice of may providers, I certainly rate TPG above a lot of others in Australia. But you're right that they are not a customer focused ISP, they are purely cost focused.

Re:Pro-bono?

[ultranova]

I suspect, based upon their previous legal challenges that the management of iiNet actually think that what is occurring here is wrong and they're putting their money into what they believe which isn't something that you often see in the corporate world.

It also makes them a more attractive choice for an ISP to potential customers. Copyright industry is pretty much an extortion racket at this point, extracting "settlements" from random people.

Re:Pro-bono?

[TapeCutter]

extracting "settlements" from random people

Although there have been threats to do so, this isn't happening in Oz any day soon, the court specifically warned the MAFFIA not to use US style extortion letters. Any letters they send must be pre-approved by the court. If they do it now they WILL be held in contempt and possibly disbarred for abuse of process.