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Court case could force one strike and you’re out on downloaders in Australia

Posted: March 25, 2009

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The copyright case against Australia’s second largest ISP iiNet went to court today with an interesting twist: the entertainment industry wants iiNet to disconnect customers accused of illegal downloading as soon as they are notified.

The action against iiNet was filed in the Australian Federal Court by Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Disney and the Seven Network. The studios claim iiNet in effect “authorized” customers’ copyright infringement by failing to disconnect them when notified of the infringements by the movie studios.

iiNet told the court that they were was not required to act on a “mere allegation of copyright infringement” and that the case was “like suing the electricity company for things people do with their electricity”.

Asher Moses in the Sydney Morning Herald notes “if iiNet loses, all ISPs could be forced to disconnect customers identified by the movie studios as illegal downloaders.” Not three strikes and you’re out as is the case in France, or as recently proposed in New Zealand, but one accusation and you’re gone. Australia is starting to look more and more like China and Iran every day.

Category: Technology
Tags : , , ,
Posted: March 25, 2009
Duncan Riley

By Duncan Riley









Comments


4 Archived Responses to “ Court case could force one strike and you’re out on downloaders in Australia ”

  1. Bas
    Mar 25, 2009

    That's just plain stupid. This way everyone will just make less money, not more. The ISPs, the entertainment companies and all internet businesses. S-t-u-p-i-d.

  2. Zarvensha
    Mar 25, 2009

    If my understanding is correct most Anti-Piracy evidence is based on a user being identified from their IP address. As has been pointed out by many of those far more technically minded than me IP addresses can be faked. So in theory if Hollywood and Co get their way every Australian ISP will be forced to instantly disconnect people based on data that can be spurious at best.

    And why?

    Because Hollywood suspects(!?!) that every download is lost revenue.
    Does anyone truly believe this? I mean really, would someone really pay to watch the Love Guru, or would they prefer to download the thing, watch it, and get amazed that anyone in their right mind thought it would make money.

    Or lets take this from another point of view.
    Who seriously thinks that anyone needs 25GB of downloads or more a month that aren't file sharing?

    Anyway, Hollywood's theory seems to be that if they stop File Sharing, or at least kick everyone off the Internet who is, everything will be all rosy from then on.

    Some of the same minds that come up with Abstinence from Sex and Just say no to drugs I'm sure.
    Those concepts seem to work so well don't they?

    MAKE BETTER MOVIES=MAKE MORE MONEY.

    Don't blame file sharing for the fact no one is willing to pay to see movies that are crap.
    We all paid to see Dark Knight didn't we?

    Ahh, hell, lets just send all the ISP's bankrupt and shut down the Internet as we know it, that should give Hollywood what they want, shouldn't it?

  3. Glenn
    Mar 25, 2009

    iiNet is Australia's THIRD largest ISP, the second largest being Optus.

  4. TheTopBloke
    Jun 29, 2009

    Australians are too stupid to do anything about. They'll be speaking Mandarin within twenty years.