Blog: AFACT v iiNet: Room 18C

Tension and anticipation cut the air in room 18C of the Federal Court of Australia during the dying moments before Justice Cowdroy yesterday ended a year of media and industry speculation, and announced the victory of a Perth-based telco over a band of entertainment giants.

While the technology press is filled with coverage on what the decision means for industry, many journalists and industry players told your reporter they could not anticipate whether iiNet or the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) consortium would win. Most had instead hedged their bets.

But despite the understanding that a losing party would likely appeal, the suspense around the cessation of the year-long catalytic case was palpable. Journalists crammed alongside AFACT and iiNet representatives in the small courtroom and listened to Cowdroy's brief but succinct and thorough reasons for crushing the case against the Internet Service Provider (ISP).

An audible sigh (or was it a moan?) was detected escaping from the litigants as judgement was given. ISP chief Michale Malone exited to the waiting media throng with the weight of a $4 million defence written across his forehead in beads of sweat.

That he told jostling press he was “relieved” at the cessation of the case perhaps understated the expected liberation of liability now bestowed on the rest of Australia's ISPs; AFACT's Neil Gane left after a terse statement expressing his disappointment at the result and belief that the government will not abide “unbridled” copyright infringement.

It may have marked the end of litigation against ISPs for responsibility of customers who flaunt with pirate music and movies, but it has far from made Australia a safehabour for pirates. France, Italy, and the UK have, or are presently investigating serious punishments for users – not ISPs - found to be breaching copyright.

Companies with serious legal and political power are pushing for tougher copyright laws all over the world. Take a look at the rumour mill surrounding the shadowy ACTA plurilateral trade agreement. Many of these companies are not convinced of the benefits of new online distribution models - perhaps to protect established systems of profit - and speculation will continue until financial models are developed that are compelling to both publishers and would-be pirates.

More about: ACT, iiNet
References show all

Comments

1

TrueBlue

Sat 06/02/2010 - 23:25

Come on guys the reality is if they held the ISP responsible (which they clearly are not) you would have to hold every library responsible for copying of books and every photo copying and printer company responsible. The issue is actually that the film and music industry don't protect their intellectual property (and you really have to wonder what its value is anyway) and act in a monopolistic way to charge out outrageous prices for products of very low social value. If the music and film industry want to stop copying and dowm load simply build in a proprietary format or lower the down load price and bingo illegal downloads will stop. Why does a a DVD cost $40 when replication cost is 5c the film cost was recovered in the movie theaters the only real crooks here are the music and film companies and the greedy self opinionated actors and singers .

2

john pasquale

Sun 07/02/2010 - 00:27

When will people realise that every time you download a movie one of Brad Pitt's and Angelina Jolie's kids goes hungry.

3

Maxx

Sun 07/02/2010 - 08:30

Yep, even with all this rampant piracy, I don't hear much of the big entertainment companies going broke. In fact they lose money from piracy, and now from failed litigation, but they still have enough left over for profit.

4

rpb

Sun 07/02/2010 - 09:23

"Should we invest in improving the situation?

Nah, let's sue someone!"

Copyright and more to the point, protection of intellectual property is a serious matter. What is so laughable about AFACT is that they lament about principles on what is arguably the most unimportant 'intellectual property'. AFACT does not attempt to safeguard their copyright, they attempt to safeguard their profits. It's not the same. They apply the utmost use of leverage together with a total perversion of the principles of law. They attack a mid-sized ISP with relatively limited funds to create a precedence on the cheap.They provide no commensurate investment in securing source-media. Nor do they (to my knowledge) sincerely attempt to work WITH the ISPs and invest in tracking copying. Its all a bit like sending a letter without sealing the envelope and blaming the post-office that people can read it.

Having said that, I am concerned for Brad & Angie's children.

And we can only pray that the already frugal post-Oscars parties can go ahead as planned.

5

Enigmatic

Mon 08/02/2010 - 13:39

What I find the most astounding about all of this is their definition of a "lost sale".

Someone who pirates a movie is considered to be robbing the company of money beause there is an automatic (and fundamentally flawed) assumption that the person who pirated it would have in fact gone out and purchased it had the pirated copy not been available.

So what about Joe Bloggs who invites his mates around to his house to watch a DVD he rented? 10 people all watch this movie together, and 9 of them will no longer go out and rent/purchase the movie themselves because they have watched it.

Oh no! Now the movie company has lost 9 times more profit than the piracy and yet its PERFECTLY LEGAL!!!!

Idiotic huh? Now you see the problem in their current sales model

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the Computerworld comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: AFACT v iiNet
Whitepapers
All whitepapers
Sign up now to get free exclusive access to reports, research and invitation only events.
Featured Download
/downloads/product/170/gadwin-geforms/

Gadwin GeForms

GeForms allows you to create your own forms or fill in existing forms electronically. Using GeForms you are provided with sophisticated form design tools which ...

Computerworld newsletter

Join the most dedicated community for IT managers, leaders and professionals in Australia