Studios Sue Oz ISP Over Allowing Piracy

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.'"

Criminal intent?

This is the age old debate where possession of a tool is equalled to necessarily having the criminal intent to use it to commit acts you know are ilegal. Next up - watch hardware stores get sued for selling hammers that can be used by thugs and crooks to mug people by hitting them over the head. When will shoe stores get sued for selling boots and shoes that are painful to the person receiving kicks in the ass?

Re:Criminal intent?

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.

Re:Criminal intent?

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.

Re:Criminal intent?

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.

Re:Criminal intent?

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).

Re:Criminal intent?

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.

Re:Criminal intent?

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.

Re:Criminal intent?

This same tired argument gets dragged out every time this comes up. There are A LOT of WoW users and WoW's not even the only app to use BitTorrent type tech. Steam [play.tm] does as well. (yes, 4 year old link. I spent 5 seconds googling, do your own research.)

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?

Re:Criminal intent?

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.

Negligible!

F/OSS is negligible! Negligible, I tell you!
Negligible! Negligible! Negligible! Negligible!

-Steve Ballmer

Re:Criminal intent?

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.

Re:Deliver or shut up!

Tiny floating towns ? (NW of Perth is in the Indian Ocean).

Re:Criminal intent?

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?

Is USPS liable for mail fraud?

It's not the ISP's job to force its users to use its product legally, take any product that can be used to commit a crime, is the provider or the user at fault?

Re:Is USPS liable for mail fraud?

They are liable as long as they are considered a content provider.

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)

More carrot, less stick

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.

OSI model

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."

Because it's iiNet

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...

"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'."

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.

He said another problem with this traffic is that is not on its network. "It is transiting our network along with the billions of other things passing across the network which are perfectly legal. We are not traffic cops. We can't stand in the middle of it and stop the individual items that might be against the law. These guys are asking us to be judge, jury and executioner," Malone said.

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.

"I think they genuinely believe that ISPs have a secret magic wand that we are hiding and if we bring it out we can make piracy disappear just by waving it. And it doesn't exist."

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

Re:Why not all the +10Mbit/s ISP's in Sweden?

Because the studios obviously think the Australian government is more likely to roll over and do what they want than the Swedes?

Re:Why not all the +10Mbit/s ISP's in Sweden?

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.

Re:As frightningly evil...

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.

Re:As frightningly evil...

In the interest of saving time, I will go ahead and get off your lawn so you won't have to ask. Good day, sir.

Re:As frightningly evil...

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.

Re:I had the same attitude from EA..

Right. But then try selling that disc that you purchased... and now you can't. Because you didn't buy a disc. You bought a "license" to use the game.

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.