"Hollywood" loses in High Court to ISP.

[ishtat]

A consortium of (mainly US based) 'content' creators sued a small ISP called iiNET in the Australian Federal court for allowing third parties to 'steal' their copyrighted material. iiNet had less than 10% of the Australian market ( A total of 22 million people) but generated more than 50% of their revenues through torrent downloads. They were a small target with limited funds and even the judges who found in their favour (in the lower Federal court) were critical of their contemptuous behavior towards copyright owners.

http://www.smartoffice.com.au/Business/Technology/R4W5W9Q8?page=1

The case was appealed to the High Court (Constitutional equivalent to the US Supreme court) and iiNet won 5 to zero.

However it's not a clear cut win because the court's ruling anticipates that if the ISP can install the technical capacity to control the content of downloads in future, they may be made responsible. Basically the decision said even if the ISP knows the conduct is wrong, if they lack the capacity to stop the particular wrong they cannot be forced to do so more broadly.

Under Australian court rules the plaintiffs (as losers) will have to pick up the defendants legal costs, somewhere between 6 and 9 million dollars. It is believed that iiNET had financial support to defend the action from other ISP's particularly Telstra, which has 44% of the market and owns many of the distribution facilities iiNET and other ISP's use.

There seems to be three possible solutions either, legislative restrictions (deeply unpopular) or, a technical breakthrough to allow ISP s to monitor and control particular content, or the content owners change the way they sell product. But obviously a small market like Australia will not want to take the initiative.

 

[Handley_Page]

Hooray for the little guy (in general terms).

To my mind, there would not be the 'trade' in "copyright" material if the "content creators" charged a more modest fee for their product and somehow prevented the hangers-on from taking their (unjustified) cut.

I find it repugnant that a film I buy in the USA (via the 'net) cannot be played (easily) over here because of "licence issues" and I have to acquire that product through a different chain in the EU - usually at vastly inflated prices.
What's the point of having what is described as a 'global market place' if one cannot get the product because some bloody lawyer decides it is so ?
It surely would be cheaper in the long run to have less of the "licence issues" and more of the "come & get it here", with simpler machines where the world is not divided into Zones to make playing that much more technically tricky.

Simplify the whole thing and the rip-offs would be much reduced.

 

[ishtat]

Hooray for the little guy (in general terms).

To my mind, there would not be the 'trade' in "copyright" material if the "content creators" charged a more modest fee for their product and somehow prevented the hangers-on from taking their (unjustified) cut.

I find it repugnant that a film I buy in the USA (via the 'net) cannot be played (easily) over here because of "licence issues" and I have to acquire that product through a different chain in the EU - usually at vastly inflated prices.
What's the point of having what is described as a 'global market place' if one cannot get the product because some bloody lawyer decides it is so ?
It surely would be cheaper in the long run to have less of the "licence issues" and more of the "come & get it here", with simpler machines where the world is not divided into Zones to make playing that much more technically tricky.

Simplify the whole thing and the rip-offs would be much reduced.

Not so sure I agree that the little guy is necessarily the good guy. I have now read the transcripts of both the the original and the appeals judgments and there is little doubt in my mind that if the judges could have nailed iiNet on a sound legal basis they would have. I also think that the judges were aware that making a finding in Australia, a very small market, would not be a fix for what is a global problem.

I wonder if anyone has an opinion on why a group of American plaintiffs decided to bring this case in OZ rather than seek a US target; the precedent value is obviously weaker. The main problem that these plaintiffs seem to have is that US copyright and intellectual property law (at most in its enforcement) is out of line with the rest of the (western) world. The Asians in particular the Chinese of course, more or less ignore intellectual property rights in practice, whatever agreements they may make politically.