iiNet gives AFACT a pounding!
p2pnet view Movies | P2P | Politics:- Australia has a lot in common with Britain.
They’re both run by politicians who are firmly in the pockets of the corporate entertainment industry, they both believe they have the right to decide what their citizens should see and hear, they’re both run by limp Labour governments which are on their way out —-
—- and they’re both home to half-assed scam outfits called FACT, owned by ie, Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, Viacom, NBC Universal and Sony Pictures.
FACT is short for Farcical Approaches to Copyright Transgressions and the Australian version has just taken another major shot in the teeth for its owners, the Hollywood studios (see above).
As Andrew aka Comeoncomcast puts it >>>
LOL
… 
yes iiNet won!!! XD Now on to sue AFAIL for defamation, and damage of reputation and trademark!!!!
:d
Our picture shows an Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft spokesperson shortly after learning it hadn’t only lost its case, but also has to pay iiNet’s costs, estimated at $4 million.
FACT, the Oz clone, has for months been trying to mince Australian ISP iiNet on behalf of the Hollywood studios.
But, “The giants of the film industry have lost their case against ISP iiNet in a landmark judgment handed down in the Federal Court today,” says the Sydney Morning Herald, going on >>>
The decision had the potential to impact internet users and the internet industry profoundly as it sets a legal precedent surrounding how much ISPs are required to do to prevent customers from downloading movies and other content illegally.
But after an on-and-off eight-week trial that examined whether iiNet authorised customers to download pirated movies, Justice Dennis Cowdroy found that the ISP was not liable for the downloading habits of its customers.
In a summary of his 200-page judgment read out in court this morning, Justice Cowdroy said the evidence established that iiNet had done no more than to provide an internet service to its users.
Says Canadian coyright expert Howard Knopf on Excess Copyright >>>
- In summary, in this proceeding, the key question is: Did iiNet authorise copyright infringement? The Court answers such question in the negative for three reasons: first because the copyright infringements occurred directly as a result of the use of the BitTorrent system, not the use of the internet, and the respondent did not create and does not control the BitTorrent system; second because the respondent did not have a relevant power to prevent those infringements occurring; and third because the respondent did not sanction, approve or countenance copyright infringement.
- I will now make my formal orders. For the reasons provided in the written judgment I make the following orders.
- The Amended Application be dismissed.
- Subject to Order 3 and 4, the Applicants pay the costs of the Respondent, including costs thrown away as a result of the Applicants’ abandoning the primary infringement claim against the Respondent.
- Any party or person applying for an order for costs different to that provided by Order 2 is to notify the Court within 14 days in which event Order 2 will be vacated and in lieu costs will be reserved.
- If any application for costs is made as provided in Order 3 the parties and/or persons are to consult and prepare consent directions for the filing of submissions and, if required, for a hearing on costs.
Here’s the decision – which is 636 paragraphs in length and extremely detailed in its factual and legal analysis.
It is worth noting that Justice Cowdroy issued this decision just 70 days – i.e. 10 weeks – after the conclusion of a hearing that lasted 16 days. And much of this period was the Christmas season.
Michael Geist has quickly focused on the Judge’s disparaging remarks on “termination” of subscribers accounts, and how this would not be reasonable because it would prevent use of the internet for all sorts of non-infringing uses.
Of course, the decision is mostly about “authorization”, which is a proverbially important topic in Commonwealth countries and very different in important ways from the American concept of contributory infringement or secondary liability. It is this latter concept plus the US Supreme Court’s “inducement” doctrine enunciated in Grokster + the US instigated three strikes policy that the US is trying to force upon Canada and ohter countries in every forum it can.
“Authorization” was also a key issue in the Canadian Supreme Court’s landmark 2004 CCH decision.
While this decision will make for wonderful reading for copyright aficionados everywhere, and much celebration by those who believe in reasonable, proportionate and effective remedies, there will also be another process starting immediately.
This will entail the inevitable spin and propaganda that entertainment industry lobbyists will invoke as to how this decision clearly proves the need for a strong and mandatory “three strikes” mechanism and that ACTA is just the right forum to put it into place.
“Today’s decision is very disappointing for the film industries who launched the case and for the 50,000 Australians who are employed in the Australian film industry,” said FACT’s Oz boss Neil Gane.
Launched the case and for the 50,000 Australians who are employed in the Australian film industry?
What a load of CRAP!
FACT is also the outfit which claims one out of three Britons is a thief.
Jon Newton - p2pnet
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Sydney Morning Herald – iiNet slays Hollywood in landmark piracy case, February 4, 2010
out of three – FACT: a third of all Britons are online pirates, November 14, 2008
Excess Copyright – ISP beats Hollywood in Oz iiNet decision, February 3, 2010
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February 4th, 2010 at 9:52 am
A clear loss for the copyright maximalists, now that the law has been re-affirmed clearly in Australia in this case and in the UK in Alan Ellis’s case it may well be the start of a tidal wave against those groups attempting to subvert the “common carrier” status of ISP’s to their own profit, lets remember to focus on the Italian ISP company currently under attack and keep an eye out for the Blubster/Piolet guy, they need our support , lets give them it.
February 4th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
“Our picture shows an Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft spokesperson shortly after learning it hadn’t only lost its case, but also has to pay iiNet’s costs, estimated at $4 million.”
Are you kiding me? No way! Way too cute! You should find something really ugly and nasty looking such as a picture of Harper crying or something similar instead!
Remember? We are hard wired to protect our kids.
February 4th, 2010 at 8:27 pm
Here in Australia we get the bastard add agencies manipulating us from the cradle to the grave to literally “EAT SHIT”, so we have a nation of fat bastards….. even fatter than the previous record holders – the Americans……
So Free To Air TV, the subscriber TV, the magazines and radio stations and all the movies and everything, runs off the monopolised programming of these “big studio” cretins; that also profit off the never ending junk food adds.
They they say “Oh it’s the governments fault – they should fix all the fat people, by spending taxpayers money” on their nightly Current Affairs programming and rigged “all the different and competing TV stations run the same news stories” programming.
And then late at night we get the “Dial a stripper” and “The licking Lezzies” video adds for your mobile phone – wall to wall every 5 minutes……
Free to Air TV in Australia is basically crap…
I feel as a consumer that people are basically sick of being fed crap by these studio’s, as they get forcibly herded from one cattle pen to the next, while these “friends of their own market share “groom and extort” funds from them at every step of the way – and consumers are saying, “We are tired of your gouging and deceit – so we are making our OWN choices to obtain the content that we want, when we want it; and without all the “eat shit” advertising to go with it”.
And these studios – as represented by AFACT – are doing everything they can to get control back.
Can I walk into my local record store and have a listen to all the music that has ever been released in the last 100 years? No.
What about all the number one songs – or the albums they came on, for the last 50 years? No.
If I can’t listen to what I want, then what is available? All the latest “flavours of the month” – and some stuff that is available on back order (read – very little).
Consumers are giving the finger to these greedy, manipulative nazi control freaks – and they are thinking and consuming content for themselves…… minus the junk food and mobile phone porn adds, and the complete lack of availability of much older “commercial” content.
And these nazi pigs in these AFACT backed corporations don’t like it.
February 4th, 2010 at 11:08 pm
The first thing the dirty mongrels did upon loosing was to run to Senator Herr Conroy (Same guy who wants to censor the internet here in Australia) & ask for the law to be changed, what a bunch of EMO’s.
February 5th, 2010 at 1:19 am
@Wozzzaaa:
Did’ja catch the title on this one?
