AFACT v iiNet: Film studios seeking to recoup costs

The fact that they lost a case which they should never have won which not only cost themselves a lot of wasted money but iiNets as well and they want iinet to pay?? For real?? They lost!! Game over. Take your bat and ball and bugger off. The nerve of these evil corporate monkeys is just mind blowing. They loose and yet they don't want to pay. I'll take the same approach next time I want a cd or dvd. Easy

Has April Fool's come early? Nope, it's just more corporate greed gone mad. I hope this gets thrown out as well, and better yet, I hope iiNet countersues for all it's costs in this and the original case. Now that would be fair.

AFACT members include: Village Roadshow Limited; Motion Picture Association: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Australia; Paramount Pictures Australia; Sony Pictures Releasing International Corporation; Twentieth Century Fox International; Universal International Films, Inc.; and Warner Bros. Pictures International, a division of Warner Bros. Pictures Inc.

With AFACT continually trying to link people downloading movies and tv shows for free with ridiclous claims of terrorism and links to other criminal activity, they can get stuffed. Using this spin to get government to make policy is crazy and only shows how greedy and corrupt they are.

Time to think about who is funding these loonies and how to minimise that funding, boycott the above companies, never pay a cent to them again.

Hey they did not waste money! They helped keep in employment lots of legal people which we apparently cannot do without. It is generating employment!!

I have to agree with post #2, WHAT???!?!!?!

I can understand going back to court regarding differences in opinion about prices/amounts (though generally a lawer keeps tight tabs on costs and it does not need to go back to court).

But this? being told to pay expences (as is normal for a loosing side, done partially to reduce time wasting cases) does not mean the bill gets "reduced due to winning a 'point' " in the case.

Personally, I am not a lawer, this case is on thiner ice than the first. Just need to ge before a judge (no jury), get told to "grow up", get given the bill again for the two court vists, and slaped with a fine for the wasted time.

Australia's Commonwealth Gov't owes it to the People of Australia to IMMEDIATELY enact legislation to give ISPs the same "Common Carrier" protection that telco's (including de facto monopoly Telstra) have enjoyed & used to their advantage for YEARS.

...BOTH to reduce unnecessary costs on the part of smaller ISPs

AND to focus responsibility for the allegedly unlawful acts on their perpetrators, not the ISP [, computer suppliers, power utilties, et al.] who helped make the acts possible.

A (Big Content) vs (little ISP) case consumes WAY too much of our courts' limited time, and this impacts the time available for MORE IMPORTANT cases, which, eg, might affect our safety in the streets.

We DON'T need a country whose laws enable lawyers (on BOTH sides) to drain the pockets of our smaller ISPs, who have enough work for themselves, eg, competing with the likes of ex-Gov't-owned Telstra.

What we need is a set of CONSISTENT Comms Laws, based on the Practical Wisdom, that:

"ISPs the telco's of today, and deserve the same protections that our telco's enjoy to this day."

(Next time someone uses the telephone to defraud you, see how far you'd get, eg, by suing your phone company for making it possible for that to happen.)

"However an AFACT spokeswoman said the group has not lodged an appeal yet and is unaware of any plans to do so. The organisation has until 25 to do so."

'Until 25'? The 25th of this month? 2025?

Ok that does it.. I am no longer going to buy/rent dvds and I am going to stop going to the movies. Clearly these guys are just too thick to get it. Lets see how many people you can sue when the money starts running dry.

When AFACT first ran up their website a DNS query would show that it was hosted at Fox Studios in Sydney. They seam to have fixed that now.

It looks like their corporate site is still on the old Fox nameserver though,
http://www.robtex.com/dns/afact.com.au.html#graph

Murdoch should get this fixed or the charade that they represent big old media may fall over.

We're such idiots.

WTF !!! Dose this mean if i get convicted of burglary that i can go back to court and ask to be reimbursed for my petrol for carrying there stuff away to the Sunday markets ?

The balls of these people is amazing but i guess when u have a minister in one pocket and a trillion dollars in the other ...

I too will never buy a DVD or a Music CD Until some one has the balls to stand up to the cartels.

I download music from www.mp3.com. Free samplers, and can followup with purchase of the rest of the album. The artists get my money. A different business model to the Big Bucks parasites squeezing the income and opportunities of the artists, and renting prostitute politicians to sucker the public. What sort of low joke is the legal system when the biggest pockets decide the law. Once Americans made an income from selling good stuff, now Big Business has moved production to China, and they only survive by selling drugs and this sort of extortion racket. Next it will be criminal to disclose where goods can be had cheaper than the Coles-Woolworths monopoly.

I think if anyone here was hit with a $4M bill they would be looking at ways to reduce it. AFACT are not likely to receive any money from iiNet but are likely to have their own liability reduced in proportion to the parts of the case they won.

Remember this is the legal profession. No one makes any money if the customer only walks through the door once.

AFACT also win if this issue is kept in the media spotlight with the usual claims of theft, supporting terrorism and millions out of work - while journalists ignore the theft of public property by corporations gaining copyright extensions, dodgy patents and even dodgier contracts for artists.

I've been Telstra cable for five years because it's the fastest available in my area but I'm now cutting over to iiNet DSL in protest of this BS. I'm willing to suffer some additional latency to give these people additional revenue. I'll get more bits per month anyway.

They should really get some new legal advice.. Clearly their current team is fleecing them for every cent they can get!
The original case was an uphill battle, this is an inverted battle!
If AFACT win costs against iiNet, the world will have turned upside down.
If anything, iiNet's costs should be covered by AFACT.They brought the waste-of-time-case to the court, they should pay for the privilege of doing so.

As a law-abiding iiNet subscriber, I don't appreciate part of my fees having to be put towards defending a lawsuit.

I hope the judge dismisses this action and orders AFACT to pay costs for this attempt as well.

If this is the "logic" upon which they based their original legal grounds - is it any wonder why they lost !!!

By the other comments, I'm probably preaching to the converted, but ...
IINET (my ISP, I'm proud to say) is being asked to pay and/or not receive costs for points of law conceded during the trial. Imagine a parallel. You sue me for damages because you claim that a workman employed by me dropped a heavy tree branch on my car. I don't believe that I had any employees in the area. We argue, and eventually I'm forced to concede that I did. But it turns out that someone else entirely dropped the branch on your car. You've sued the wrong person. But you then claim you shouldn't have to pay costs for the argument about where my employees were, because you won some little points, but not the actual argument. INSANE. There wouldn't have been any costs for you or me without the failed court case. I trust that IINET will prevail again and (I wish but doubt) recover punitive costs.

My LV lover insisted to wait until 19 o'clock every day in order to be able to work on time and that he had met in the elevator for a week straight every time so that slammed heartbeat remember the first time I met him only the elevator of his noble elegance deep caught my eye, he smiled at me I am slightly embarrassed to bow to shift our attention to his <a href="http://www.prevalentbags.com/louis-vuitton-handbags-c-111.html">Louis vuitton handbags</a> suddenly think there is only worthy of him until we met his fashion business casual dress seems to shorten our The distance between we see laterI found his style changed a LV bag to the public yet elegant ... ... so I fell in love with this man met fell in love with <a href="http://www.prevalentbags.com/">designer handbags</a>.

It is a real pleasure for me to visit your blog and to enjoy your excellent post here. I like that very much. I understand that you paid much attention for those articles, as all of them make sense and are very useful. Thanks so much for sharing. I can be very good reader & listener. Appreciate your work!