Details Emerge On Australian Lawsuit Against ISPs For Failing To Stop Piracy

from the that's-the-best-you-can-do dept

Wed, Dec 17th 2008 5:09pm — Mike Masnick

Last month, we wrote about the lawsuit filed by various movie studios, against Australian ISP iiNet for failing to wave a magic wand and wipe out piracy. Apparently, the reason the studios thought they had a slam dunk case was because they hired an "investigator" who signed up with iiNet's service, purposely shared movies, and then had the studios complain to see if iiNet would cut him off. Since it did not, the studios claim that iiNet knew about piracy and did nothing about it. Leaving aside the point that it wasn't actually copyright infringement in the case of the investigator, since he was authorized to distribute the content, and the takedown notice would likely be a false notification, iiNet's response (which we mentioned when the case first came out) seems to still be dead on:

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'.

So, iiNet did take appropriate action. It alerted the police that a company felt laws were being broken. That seems like it should be the extent of any ISP's engagement when sent such flimsy evidence.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: australia, copyright, isp, movie studios
Companies: iinet

13 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

WL, 17 Dec 2008 @ 5:36pm

.....how did you get this job again?
I want to know who thought it was a good idea to legally distribute media and then try and sue the internet service provider who did this for them, for not doing deep packet filtering? Obviously these are lawyers and CEOs and not actual IT professionals. Otherwise they would have known deep packet filtering is an expensive and time consuming process to protect someone else's copyright? When fast internet traffic is a must for your customers it is not smart to slow everything down to cover the A55 of some other companies short comings.

They need to evolve with the changing market. If their business model can not compete then my friend you should go out of business. its the circle of life, from the ashes(prior employees) of your company rises a newer stronger one.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- eleete, 18 Dec 2008 @ 12:49am
  
  Re: .....how did you get this job again?
  When the polluticians are in the pockets of the entertainment industry pockets, it's quite easy. Trim a law here, get rid of a right there and stack the deck in the **AA's favor, and there you have it. hmmm, perhaps I should patent that.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - eleete, 18 Dec 2008 @ 12:52am
    
    Re: Re: .....how did you get this job again?
    Until that edit button comes in, that should've read...
    
    When the polluticians are in the pockets of the entertainment industry, it's quite easy. Trim a law here, get rid of a right there and stack the deck in the **AA's favor, and there you have it. hmmm, perhaps I should patent that.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 17 Dec 2008 @ 6:19pm

This just in:

Banks sue highway dept for failure to stop bandits escape via roads.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 17 Dec 2008 @ 7:06pm

Police?
So if the ISP turned the complaint over to the police and the police didn't act to the satisfaction of the studios then why aren't the studios suing the police? Could it be that they know better than to try this crap with them?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Killer_Tofu (profile), 18 Dec 2008 @ 6:52am
  
  Re: Police?
  So if the ISP turned the complaint over to the police and the police didn't act to the satisfaction of the studios then why aren't the studios suing the police?
  I would speculate that it is because very few people these days have the common sense to realize who is to blame for something. They just point the finger anywhere they can.
  
  Or it could be a complete and utter lack of anything resembling intelligence. That theory is backed up somewhat by their lack of and unwillingness to adapt to the markets these days.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 17 Dec 2008 @ 10:00pm

So we say 'you are alleging the person has broken the law; we're passing it to the police. Let them deal with it'.

instant classic.

that is what i call FROM THE IN YOUR FACE DEPT,
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
tim, 17 Dec 2008 @ 11:18pm

go after the small guys
As if all the points you make arent enough to throw this out on its ass, you should probably also mention that they are actually going after one of the smaller isp's in our country. if the studios really cared about stopping piracy, they would be going after telstra, but unfortunately telstra (apparently) employs the largest legal team in australia. Although, telstra bandwidth limits are so appaling that many of their customers (read: helpless innocents locked into a contract)probably wouldnt be able to download a full film anyway.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
PaulT (profile), 18 Dec 2008 @ 12:50am

The post office also did nothing to stop DVDs being imported! Sue them! The highways authority did nothing to stop that armed robber using their roads - sue them!

If only people did recognise that the ISP responsibility argument is as stupid as those other examples... Anyway, iiNet did take the correct action. They got a valid response from the ISP. They are not legal authorities and not police. They should not be taking action based on unfounded allegations, especially on evidence as flimsy and easily faked as an IP address. Pass the information on to the correct authorities, let them deal with it if a crime has indeed been committed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 18 Dec 2008 @ 5:50am

Better sue car makers for use of their product in Speeding cases and other crimes.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 18 Dec 2008 @ 2:22pm

Sort of like...
You lay a stack of money on the ground on someone's property, then hide and watch until somebody takes it, then you take the land-owner to court.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
David, 18 Dec 2008 @ 2:59pm

ISP response
A brilliant and perfectly correct response from the ISP, in my opinion. More like a euphemism for "get stuffed".
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Rc, 18 Dec 2008 @ 3:06pm

I still want to know how they knew people were illegally downloading... did they set up their own p2p server?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]