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Studios Sue Oz ISP Over Allowing Piracy
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Thu Nov 20, 2008 10:10 AM
from the you-can't-make-this-up dept.
from the you-can't-make-this-up dept.
Da Massive writes "Leading Hollywood film studios Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Disney Enterprises are suing Australia's second largest ISP, iiNet, saying it's complicit in the infringement of their copyrighted material. According to a statement of claim, 'the ISP knows that there are a large number of customers who are engaging in continuing infringements of copyright by using BitTorrent file sharing technology.'"
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Xiroth writes "More details are beginning to come out about the lawsuit launched by film studios in Australia. According to law experts familiar with the case, the studios seek to force the ISPs to become 'police, judge, and executioner,' effectively giving the studios the legal clout to switch off ISP customers' internet connection at will. Apparently the ISP iiNet is the unlucky victim for the test case as, unlike other ISPs, they refused to pass on infringement notices to their customers."
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Criminal intent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
When will shoe stores get sued for selling boots and shoes that are painful to the person receiving kicks in the ass?
Gotta remember though, they're starting in Australia, which is a good idea considering their government's attitude on the internet and the freedoms provided therein. Interesting to me that they've started there. If it works there and the government buys into it, then look for it to spread to the other overly conservative nations. (I'm looking at you Russia)
Re:Criminal intent? (Score:5, Insightful)
As an Australian, I find it depressing that we are now apparently perceived by the rest of the world as one of those "overly conservative nations".
What happened to our traditional spirit of rebelion? What would those who took a stand in the Eureka Stockade [wikipedia.org] think of us now?
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Worse than you think (Score:5, Interesting)
wait, iiNet wasn't the one actually experimenting the new Australian filtering technology? This lawsuit is a HUGE win against such filtering protection... or not? Am I missing something?
Yes, it is an indicator that iiNet is opposed to internet content filtering [pcauthority.com.au]. However, it's also an indicator to all ISP's around the world that if they do not employ filtering they risk an extremely expensive legal battle with the seven top film studios, each of which probably has more assets and prior experience in court than the ISP's.
What's strange and rather scary about this situation is that "iiNet will be participating in the trials, mostly to prove that the filters are impractical, unworkable and unwanted." [see link above] The studios are suing them not for refusing to cooperate, but for cooperating reluctantly. That's all it takes for the MAFIAA to pull the trigger it seems.
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Re:Worse than you think (Score:5, Interesting)
iiNet are being sued because they didn't do anything when the film companies sent them notices that some of their customers were pirating their media. They apparently sent 18 notices [smh.com.au] and iiNet refused to do anything because they were allegations rather than court ordered actions.
To be honest, this seems quite reasonable to me, iiNet should not have to cut people off just because someone says: That guy was pirating my stuff, here is an IP and a time. The companies should go after the individual, not the ISP.
Ultimately we will see what the federal courts decide. The media companies in question have stated that if this goes well, they will continue onto other Australian ISPs.
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Re:Worse than you think (Score:5, Informative)
iiNet are being sued because they didn't do anything when the film companies sent them notices that some of their customers were pirating their media. They apparently sent 18 notices and iiNet refused to do anything because they were allegations rather than court ordered actions.
But they did do something about it. They passed the allegations on to the police. That is what anyone should do. It's the police's job to investigate allegations.
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Re:Criminal intent? (Score:5, Insightful)
They should sue the CD/DVD recorders companies, since they encourage piracy, much more than BitTorrent itself.
Sure, it's useful for doing backups ;-)
And it would probably be like shooting in oneself foot, since Sony sells DVD recorders.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I have no doubt they would have sued the CD/DVD recorder companies if the precedent hadn't already been set by their failed lawsuit against the VCR manufacturers.
Re:Criminal intent? (Score:5, Informative)
That didn't stop them. Even though they lost the Betamax case circa 1980, they still sued Digital Audio Tape (DAT) and kept it out of America. Then they tried to sue Digital Compact Cassette and Minidisc, which led to inbuilt copy protection of these devices.
They will never stop. They fear losing their jobs and that's one powerful motive.
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Deliver or shut up! (Score:4, Funny)
Until the Hollywood studios are ready, willing, and able to deliver their newest products, very inexpensively, to people living in tiny towns 700 miles northwest of Perth, they should stop hassling the people who are actually presently doing this.
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Re:Deliver or shut up! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Criminal intent? (Score:5, Insightful)
11 million users downloading patches from Blizzard for WoW, movies too. Many sites sharing demos and trailers also use bittorrent.
Just because they pretend it's a magical piracy device doesn't mean that one set of bits is somehow different then the other set of bits to the programs.
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Re:Criminal intent? (Score:4, Informative)
Every version/patch I have downloaded for NeoOffice has come from Bittorrent.
Bittorrent has a plethora of legal uses.
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Re:Criminal intent? (Score:5, Interesting)
When I needed AdAware to remove a nasty spybot, my bittorrent client was the only thing that worked (because the spybot was blocking browser downloads).
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Re:Criminal intent? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Criminal intent? (Score:4, Funny)
(Kidding, don't use Azureus)
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Re:Criminal intent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bittorrent has a plethora of legal uses.
You know that and I know that, and I'm sure the studios actually know that, but reality clashes with their desires, so they pretend loudly that their desires ARE reality.
Truth doesn't matter in a court of law. Only what you can convince the judge and jury is truth is what matters, whether your "truths" are actually true or not.
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Re:Criminal intent? (Score:5, Informative)
IAAL, and I call BS. Truth matters plenty in court. What also matters is how skilfully you are able to demonstrate the truth to a court, and (probably most importantly) how well you are able to argue for your preferred application of the law to the 'truth' (i.e. facts).
I worked for a judge here in Australia for a year, and I do not believe he ever accepted a piece of evidence that was untrue. On the whole, I'd say we usually had a very strong understanding of the actual facts in each trial by the end of the evidence.
Incidentally, this will be a civil claim in Australia and will be heard by a judge, not a jury.
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Re:Criminal intent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Riiiiight, because my client who uses Amazon S3 to originate huge software packages that are distributed over Bittorrent (a feature built into S3) is obviously committing some sort of criminal act by using the Bittorrent protocol.
Get over yourself. Next you'll outlaw fire extinguishers because I can beat someone over the head with them. Go after the crime not the tool.
Disclaimer: Personally, I think media companies have perpetrated a copyright land grab long enough. Fuck 'em.
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Why waste ammo? (Score:4, Funny)
>>>Go after the crime not the tool.
Would it be acceptable if I went after the RIAA CEO with a BFG? (Democratic Party Founder Thomas Jefferson says, "...the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants...")
Well, I'd nullify if I was on the jury when you went to trial, but why waste ammo? I've got a tire iron autographed by Tonya Harding I'd be willing to lend you.
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Re:Criminal intent? (Score:5, Insightful)
It hasn't even been proven that all of the music / programs / movies getting downloaded are truly being pirated. Tons of people bought Spore and then downloaded cracked versions to avoid activation issues. When I used file sharing apps to get music I already owned about 90% of the stuff I was downloading. I was just too lazy to bring my CDs to work to rip them. It was easier to just DL it. Same with movies. How many people have DVD ripping software compared to how many people have bittorrent?
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Re:Criminal intent? (Score:5, Insightful)
The media-entertainment sellers have made the same argument against just about every recordable media format invented. The old cassette tape almost never made it to market and several formats of digital tape never made or were relegated to professional use only applications.
For most people, the rule is that they fear what they don't understand... in media-entertainment, they fear what they can't control and that [especially] includes the consumer.
The media industry has not only been crossing the line, but they stepped over, built their homes and are living comfortably over the line. They need to be put back into their places starting with extreme copyright reform restoring the duration of copyright to something reasonable and re-establishing fair use.
Could you imagine how much more motivated the software, music and video industries would be to create better and more varied content when their old cash cows are killed off? Just the range of old software that would become public domain by itself would reveal some very useful things that could then be modified for imbedded and other uses... other uses that could also include providing access to ancient data formats that public data has been encoded in for example.
And what would prevent people from wanting to use the old stuff? Simple! Make newer and better stuff! Forget small incremental changes, not fixing ALL the bugs and all that stuff... marketing broken software as a business model [I am looking at you Microsoft] will then be defeated...or at least deterred a bit.
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Re:Criminal intent? (Score:5, Interesting)
If someone today said that they could find a way of making money by giving away something broadcasting it across the planet on TV and on the net and still make people pay for it they would laughed at but this is exactly what the media companies do ...
I can pay to watch a movie, buy it on DVD, watch it on free to view TV, and it is still illegal for me to download it and watch that? I've paid twice to watch it and a company has paid you to broadcast it ... why do you still want money for it...?
Copyright is being used as a licence to print money forever by these companies...
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Negligible! (Score:5, Funny)
F/OSS is negligible! Negligible, I tell you!
Negligible! Negligible! Negligible! Negligible!
-Steve Ballmer
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Re:Criminal intent? (Score:4, Insightful)
It depends. If you kill the murderer or thief who is engaged in the act of attacking you or endangering your safety, so be it.
But if you hold him at gunpoint, put him on his knees, and then shoot him afterward, then you, my friend, are a murderer.
This, to me, is not self defense. Self defense is you being inside your home, with a robber breaking in and trying to break down a door to get at you and your family. In which case, let him have it with both barrels, as they say.
But to force people into a submission position, train a gun
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Re:Criminal intent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Excuse my Godwin, but wanting to kill the "stupid" was one of the things Hitler wanted to do....
I agree that the current "less then lethal" weapons are not terribly good at anything, they're both lethal and hard to use properly.
I'm not going to excuse that Godwin. Don't be absurd. He in no way advocated killing the stupid because they were stupid.
He said someone making the decision to steal and murder was stupid based on that decision, and the condition of being stupid wasn't why he was advocating defending himself with the most appropriate tool.
He is defending himself, that requires no further justification.
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Re:Criminal intent? (Score:4, Insightful)
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So they're using the courts correctly (Score:4, Insightful)
They think something is not legal. The opposing party does not agree, so they take it to the court.
This seems to me exactly the situation where you'd want people to use the courts. Australia's a democracy. Everybody has the right to complain, and they may be right when they complain. Even Disney.
Call again when you have a verdict. Then you have actual information to report.
You keep using that word.... (Score:4, Insightful)
"This seems to me exactly the situation where you'd want people to use the courts. Australia's a democracy. Everybody has the right to complain, and they may be right when they complain. Even Disney."
What does being a democracy have to do with taking things to court?
If you wanted to talk about a democracy, you'd say that Disney (et al) would propose a law and allow every person to vote on the merits of that law.
But trying to get a ruling from a Judge instead of working with the legislature strikes me as *undemocratic*.
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Why not all the +10Mbit/s ISP's in Sweden? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why don't do this to all the ISP's in Sweden?
2.6 Million Swedes apparently pirate software, music and movies every day. That's almost 1/3rd of the populace.
They make huge profits from this but in no way are they trying to hinder the use of p2p, well some try to filter it but that doesn't help very much.
Re:Why not all the +10Mbit/s ISP's in Sweden? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Why not all the +10Mbit/s ISP's in Sweden? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's only a matter of time. It will happen first in the countries who's current laws and governments make it most likely to succeed. The rest of the world will follow in due course.
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Re:Why not all the +10Mbit/s ISP's in Sweden? (Score:5, Funny)
The rest of the world will follow in due course.
Ah, this explains how when I woke up this morning all countries had the death penalty, this afternoon there were no speed limits, and tomorrow I'm due to sacrifice my firstborn child after an edict from some leader of a tribe in south America. This automatic copying of laws from other countries is making life rather awkward.
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Is USPS liable for mail fraud? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is USPS liable for mail fraud? (Score:5, Interesting)
As soon as the ISP's started filtering traffic they didn't like and affecting what data is on their network, they became content providers and could not ask for immunity. If they were to stop filtering/blocking/etc what goes over their tubes, they could probably ask to not be considered a content provider and then what happens on their tubes is not their fault; they would be just offering a service.
(This is how I see the US working; AU might be a tad different)
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More challenging opponent (Score:4, Insightful)
At least they're not suing a 17 year old with a broadband connection for a change. Maybe the ISP will have enough money that they can actually make a proper fight of this. That might mean we can finally have the argument aired carefully enough the general public can hear both sides.
I agree with what somebody else said about hammers, but I don't think most people yet understand that argument. It will be great for the debate when more people do.
I had the same attitude from EA.. (Score:4, Interesting)
.. when I asked them how I could make back-ups of my games so I don't have to cause damage to the originals to install them ( some 20 odd CDs for 'The Sims 2' ). They told me I couldn't because, and I quote:
"You cannot create backup copies of the discs because this would allow a person to freely distribute copies of the game, which is something EA does not allow."
My reply was similar to some other posts here:
"I have no intention in distributing the copies, I merely wish to protect my investment by not using the original discs and therefore reduce the chance of damage to them. Denying me the ability to do that based on the _possibility_ that it can be used illegally is unfair and unjust.
By the reasoning you have displayed, knives are not permitted to be sold as they can be used to injure or kill someone ( which the law does not allow ), along with plastic bags, rope, water, scissors and plenty of other items you can find in any house. However, this is not the case."
In this case, it is "You are providing a service which allows people to do naughty things amongst other, legitimate activities. We are going to sue you."
Re:I had the same attitude from EA.. (Score:5, Insightful)
But try excersizing that license if your disc breaks. You can't, because it wasn't a "license," it was a copy of a game you purchased.
But you couldn't back it up? Oh, yes, because the corporation is just being legally dilligent. That must be it.
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More carrot, less stick (Score:5, Insightful)
We'd pay to see stuff at the cinema, and own it on DVD / Blu-Ray if they'd just stop suing everybody they can find and put the money into funding good script writers and directors.
I seriously worry about how the American media industry does business nowerdays.
They Need To Lose This Case Bad (Score:3, Interesting)
OSI model (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be in the ISP's best interests to stick to layer 3, forwarding IP packets. As soon as you start analysing and filtering them, you're doing a lot more than just being a service provider. The latest trends of demanding packet inspection and performing traffic-based throttling are really destroying the classic model of networking that the internet is based on. It's got to stop, or we'll have something that just isn't recognizable as "the internet" any longer.
If they're smart, they'll just say that inspecting traffic and disallowing certain types of packets is not in their business plan, and they don't have the capability or reason to do it. Otherwise they'll open themselves up to a lot more lawsuits down the road, from both sides of the fence. They'll find themselves having to bend over again and again for anyone asking them for pretty much anything. Instead, the right answer is, "we just forward IP packets, we don't piece them together or look at what they contain."
Security Flag enforcement (Score:3, Funny)
Apparently iiNet didn't enforce the evil bit [ietf.org]
They deserved to be sued.
Because it's iiNet (Score:5, Informative)
I'd bet money that iiNet is being targeted because of this story [slashdot.org].
In other news, iiNet dropped from largest ISP to second largest ISP in Australia over the course of a week&interrobang;
This guy is a CEO? He makes too much sense... (Score:5, Interesting)
Excellent synopsis and way to deal with allegations, as we've all heard exactly how often they get these things wrong. If there is an allegation of a crime it's up to the police to properly collect evidence and give it to the prosecutor's office, or the equivalent thereof in local terms.
And just like the Pr0n filters the government seems to be forcing on the public over in that section of the globe, it is completely unfeasible for a common carrier to even attempt this sort of thing. I would be completely pissed if I was blocked from accessing anything on the net. If a site is illegal then take it down, but don't try and filter what comes through my pipeline.
An attitude all to prevalent among non-techies, that throwing a few filters in place will magically fix things. Unfortunately I run into this all the time, and no amount of rational explanation makes their attitude change. Some times you have to implement the wrong solution while documenting what the right one should be, then go back and do it correctly for twice the cost.
Note: Cleaned up " ` ' in original quote to display correctly instead of in codes.
HEX
when will the industries learn? (Score:4, Interesting)
fundamentally the concept of a movie must change. it cant be something thats administered in a controlled fashion like morphine, the technology has made that model obsolete. lowering the cost of a DVD to $12 doesnt work either, because the media available online is still free. if you're going up against free, you'd better come out with a stellar product or go home.
the only solution is to accept that either the reign of the film tycoon is over and moving pictures have been forced back into an artform, or embrace online technology and advances like CGI at their actual cost...not pixar's billion-dollar markup.
the whole goddamned film 'industry' is a conglomerate of artificiality, and im afraid the only ones to be stunned by the real prices of their 'art' are ironically the industry members themselves.
Simple way to fix this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:As frightningly evil... (Score:5, Interesting)
As frighteningly scary this copyright violation behavior we hear about all the time is, all those corporate scumbags who have for years been pushing for the privatization of culture and are step by step chipping at the rights of societies worldwide to enjoy the public domain (which is the fix for the economic damage the copyright monopoly inflicts in the short run) provided themselves the fertile ground for these violations by not adapting to new technologies, and ripping off the customers as hard as they could.
so, there you go.
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Re:As frightningly evil... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:As frightningly evil... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh boy,here we go again. This is why I have to repost this every time there is anything to do with the *.A.As put on here. Don't worry brother,the brainwashing can be reversed. You see CustomDesigned,copyrights are a contract,understand? A contract between you,The citizen,and those who wish a copyright. In return for a richer public domain,which belongs to you,me,our kids and grandkids,we give them a LIMITED term of copyright,so that they will make more that we will eventually get in our glorious public domain. See how that is SUPPOSED to work?
But you see CustomDesigned,that isn't what we have anymore. We no longer have that because evil multinational corporations robbed you by performing the illegal act of bribery upon your politicians and stole your public domain from you,and me,and our kids,etc. So you see,it is kind of hard to steal from the guy who is stealing from you. You can scream "Vote" all you want,but it won't work because you can't write multi million dollar checks like they can. So you can vote all you want and it doesn't change a thing. You see civil disobedience was made for just these kinds of unjust laws written by evil men. What is civil disobedience you say? Why it is just this,refusing to obey unjust laws. Because right now the copyright system all over the world is anything BUT just.
But what is that CustomDesigned,you think that copyrights are fair? All,well then I have a sentence for you.I believe this sentence has the power to unconver the lie and I have yet to hear even the most ass kissing corporate shill defend it. Are you ready? here goes: Steamboat Willie is still under copyright. You see old Walt has been dead now for half a century,longer than most of us has been alive,and yet his FIRST work,one that was created when cars needed to be started by a crank and antibiotics wasn't even invented yet,is still under copyright. You see,once copyrights extend beyond most human lifetimes they become unlimited. They become a way for a few cartels to lock up our culture and repackage it and resell it for all eternity. That,my friend,is some evil shit.
So scream "copyright violating scumbags!" all you want,the simple fact is we are ALL being royally buttraped by the big media conglomerates every day of our lives. Just look at the movies from the '30s that they repackage and sell you every year. The actors,musicians,directors,etc are all long dead,yet the giant multinational still gets to charge you for work they had nothing what so ever to do with. I'm sorry but that is some seriously evil shit.
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Re:As frightningly evil... (Score:4, Interesting)
Because other companies HAVE embraced the technology, and people are still pirating it away.
I mean, Netflix on Demand, Blockbuster via mail, Netflix via mail, etc.
It's not that it's so much harder, it's that the economy sucks, we have a bunch of wannabe rich people driving around in 80 thousand dollar cars that can't afford them, pinned the cost on the interest in their house, and now we have BIG problems dealing with that.
They DON'T HAVE the money to go out. The current generation thinks everything should be free (to them, at least). Their is no difference in bittorrent for legal and illegal use, etc., etc., etc.
People don't WANT to pay, and enough lames figured out how to use BitTorrent.
No distro groups are using bittorrent, they still use encrypted FTP. Bittorrent is for the lames without FTP leech accounts.. Read that last statement as "for the masses who have no technical skills or anything else to add to 'the scene'".
That's the problem with your statements... They are completely ignorant. Look at the current economy, and tell me we have a bunch of people in the USA that WANT to pay their own way.
--Toll_Free
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