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Movie Studios Continue To Demand Australian ISP Admit To Supporting Piracy
from the but,-uh,-it-didn't... dept
You may recall last November that a bunch of movie studios got together and sued Australian ISP iiNet, for not being able to wave a magic wand and make all unauthorized file sharing among its users disappear. The ISP, who has taken a very pro-consumer stance, responded by noting that if there's any "theft" involved, it should be a matter for the police to investigate, not an ISP to take action based on allegations alone:
The latest, as pointed out by Michael Scott, is that the studios are basically stomping their feet and demanding that iiNet admit that it broke copyright law.
To be honest, it appears the two sides are talking past one another. The studios insist that iiNet is breaking the law by not taking action against file sharers, while iiNet is pointing out that's not the issue. It's saying it would be perfectly happy to take action against those convicted in a court of violating the law. But it can't just take the studio's word for it, and so it sees no reason to act until a court has convicted someone.
They send us a list of IP addresses and say 'this IP address was involved in a breach on this date'. We look at that say 'well what do you want us to do with this? We can't release the person's details to you on the basis of an allegation and we can't go and kick the customer off on the basis of an allegation from someone else'. So we say 'you are alleging the person has broken the law; we're passing it to the police. Let them deal with it'.In March, the company further explained its defense, noting that direct file sharing between two individuals doesn't appear to violate Australian copyright laws, since there's no "public" distribution of the material.
The latest, as pointed out by Michael Scott, is that the studios are basically stomping their feet and demanding that iiNet admit that it broke copyright law.
To be honest, it appears the two sides are talking past one another. The studios insist that iiNet is breaking the law by not taking action against file sharers, while iiNet is pointing out that's not the issue. It's saying it would be perfectly happy to take action against those convicted in a court of violating the law. But it can't just take the studio's word for it, and so it sees no reason to act until a court has convicted someone.
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Re:
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Logical
The studios just need to grow up and start following the law
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Re: Logical
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Re: Re: Logical
And how do you propose that such a person get elected by the sheeple that watch Big 6 TV stations and listen to Big 6 radio all day long? Good luck with that.
I sense a violent revolution in our (world's) future over this issue because change cannot come any other way when there is this much control.
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AMEN!
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If someone accuses me speeding through their town are the people maintaining the roads of that town supposed to prevent me from using their roads? I'm sure the road workers would probably say things very similar to the general message of iiNet "We ain't cops. Now kindly leave me alone, jerk."
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The ISP are saying exactly what every such private organisation should say: prove it, and don't come back until you have a court order. If a crime has been committed, and the reasonable punishment is the removal of service, then this should not be a problem.
It's sad that the movie studios are apparently intent on repeating the same fatal mistakes that have been destroying the music arms of their corporations.
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Flawless logic
Moreover, the radio stations should also sue speaker manufacturers because they let people hear the music (performance rights!)
Banks should sue the government for not stopping criminals on their way to a bank robbery (through public roads!)
Some guy threw a frozen treat at me the other day; I should sue the company who made the frozen treat, since it failed to prevent the treat from being thrown at me.
And don't get me started about suing the wind.
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Correction?
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Correction?
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Re: Correction?
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WOW Where can I sign up to have this company as my ISP ?
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Police?
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Re: Police?
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Re: Re: Police?
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It's to be expected
The studio's have lost, and they know it.
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Go iiNet
Recently the Australian government has been trying to put a broad internet firewall in place that they will use to filter "illegal sites" for all users of all ISP's (you probably read about this on techdirt a while back).
iiNet took a stance against this as well and actively tried to be involved in the testing phase so they could prove just how badly it worked and that it would suffer under load.
The government refused iiNet's participation in the trial and instead handed it to a bunch of small unknown ISP's who couldn't possibly give them stats on real traffic. iiNet has since then gone out their way to make everyone aware of what the government has been doing on this and does a great job of keeping all it's users informed of where they stand on it.
iiNet is one of the few companied that really does make me glad to be one of their customers rather than the competition!
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iiNet
One way to punish the movie studios is to boycot their movies.
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Re: Torrent User's IP Addresses
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Re:
Which is why I like the idea that to successfully charge somebody with infringement, they not only need to prove that the specific person who uploaded it was indeed that person, but that they also need to prove that everybody who downloaded it does NOT own it.
That is the reason you see disclaimers on No-CD sites for games. If you own the game, there is no harm. If you don't and are using the site to get games you don't own, thats a no-no. You click a disclaimer before entering.
I think uploading a torrent is similar.
Rather than installing more software on my pc to rip cds, I really do just download them. In most cases, it is certainly faster. I certainly have infringed nothing as well since I own the CD. (Note that CDs I get will not be through a major labels or their subsidaries in the past 5 years, they can suck it)
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If Copyright Is Theft...
QED.
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Reality check
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Question
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