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Will the AFACT v iiNet case help reduce the rate of online piracy?

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Tags | AFACT v iiNet

A Federal Court judge last week threw out a high-profile copyright infringement case against ISP, iiNet, brought by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT). The judge found the ISP had no liability for the instances of copyright infringement that occurred on its network.

While the decision was a significant blow to AFACT the organisation can still appeal all the way up to the High Court. So the case is expected to continue. Our question is, do you think the case will help reduce the rate of online piracy?

Have your say in this Computerworld Poll.

In last week's poll we asked how long it would be before the iPad is jailbroken. Here are the results:

An hour 10% A day 17% A week 24% A month 31% More than a month 13% Never - it's impenetrable...mwhahaha! 5%

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More about: ACT, etwork, iiNet
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Comments

1

paul

Mon 08/02/2010 - 21:35

I do not believe it was a blow to AFACT.
iinet's legal bill was about $4 million. How much more (or less) could AFART's legal bill have been. At least that gives some sort of idea. Considering the Consortium's joint financial resources, i strongly suspect this case was not about winning, but a leverage strategy relating to creating awareness, and opening a door for the political lobbying to change legislation to suit themselves...

What i have to say to you AFART, is that we shouldn't have to be paying (through our ISPs) to do your dirty police work. Let go of your horse an buggy. It died a long time ago.

2

Peter

Mon 08/02/2010 - 22:24

Horse & Buggy, Paul? Do you think going to the movies is the 'horse & buggy' approach to viewing entertainment? Or do you just think that all entertainment should be purchasable over the internet? I dont think the studios will invest as much into their entertainment if 'non-emulatable' revenue leaders like cinema become redundant in favour of a possible revenue stream (internet) that's already being massively devalued by piracy! Piracy wont stop if you can suddenly buy everything legitimately and immediately - pirates will just wait until it's freely available a few days later, and the studio will get nothing. And they've then sacrificed the cinemas to achieve..... nothing really.

3

Thrawn

Tue 27/07/2010 - 09:20

The fact that you can't emulate the cinema is exactly why it *won't* become redundant. Would people really pass up the chance to see Twilight and Avatar on the big screen, in favor of watching downloaded copies on their PCs? I think not.

The simple fact of the matter is, though, that making digital copies is not an activity worth paying for, because anyone can do it. We need to find a reasonable way to reward the *creation* of the art without trying to restrict the distribution of it. And there are ways to do that, but they aren't the way Hollywood has always done business. Hence the 'horse & buggy' comment - in the real world, cinemas are still fine, but when it comes to the internet, the industry's business model has been out of date from day one to the present.

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