Copyright Trolls Invading Australia
from the next-on-the-list dept
It appears that the plague of copyright trolls is moving down under to Australia. There's really not much of a surprise here. It's yet another example of some lawyers finding an opportunity to abuse copyright law to shake people down by offering "settlement fees" that are less than the cost of going to court. In the UK, such plans have been pretty harshly beat back, but they continue to spread elsewhere. In this case, it's an operation called Movie Rights Group, and it's planning to sue an awful lot of folks. Of course, whether or not it can actually get anyone to pay up is another story.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, copyright trolls
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Not me
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Not me
Which ISPs are those? I'm guessing TPG (my ISP) isn't one of them?
Anyway, these mass mailer guys never risk fights in court, so if you stand up to them you'll be ok...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I think this is the best way to get the general public more aware and concerned about the issue and the problems that IP is causing. If we want to spread general awareness, what better way than this? Suing 100 people hardly raises enough public awareness for anything to get done, but suing hundreds of thousands of people will raise a lot more public awareness.
Think telemarketers, but only worse. Think do not call list. Telemarketer protesters were marching congress by the millions to force it to pass Do Not Call List laws and Congress responded very quickly, despite the heavy industry lobbying against it. Even the mainstream media practically had no choice but to be almost supportive of the bill. This was before the Internet was anything close to as well used as it is now.
What these people are doing is even worse. It spells class action lawsuit all over it. People have raised class action lawsuits for much smaller, pettier issues. This could easily create even a larger class action lawsuit and it could start creating more public awareness about our broken IP system regardless of the short term outcome.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I hope Loyds Solicitors in QLD have expertise in Digital Evidence, the TIA (1979) [oh that one is a doozy], the TPA [and not just s52], and of course numerous things such as undue influence, fraud, and lets not forget Anti-Spam laws and our uniform defamation act too.
Oh and I hope they are explaining to their clients that their clients are very much in problematic areas if they are not explaining to the ISPs they are contacting (and maybe threatening) that the ISP's could also be not immune under Agency laws either.
Let the games begin I say.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Missing the big hammer
Of course, a legal battle isn't going to be fun for any reason, so they may still get some folks to pony up the cash to make them go away.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Missing the big hammer
Trouble is - it doesn't make them go away - it marks you out as a soft touch - people need to be aware of this - DON'T GIVE THEM MONEY UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]