AFACT: iiNet allowed 95,000 free handouts of copyright material
- 06 October, 2009 17:09
- Comments 6
AFACT lawyers have flagged nearly 95,000 instances of infringement on iiNet’s network on day one of its copyright case hearing against the ISP.
The barrister for the 34 film studios and Seven Network being represented by AFACT, told the Court that hired investigators demonstrated 94,942 recorded instances of iiNet users making unsolicited online copies of films and shows available; content which belonged to his clients. The investigation was conducted over a 59-week period and involved BitTorrent and Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks.
Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and Harry Potter were among the list of materials concerned but Angelina Jolie’s action movie, Wanted was the most abused title, with more than1000 alleged infringements counted on the ISP’s network.
“These unauthorised copies available via the iiNet network represented free handouts of my clients’ copyright,” AFACT lawyer, Tony Bannon, said during court proceedings, according to a statement. The plaintiff also argued that iiNet did nothing to prevent the “rampant infringement” despite receiving notices from AFACT every week for 59 weeks.
“iiNet authorised – that is sanctioned, countenanced and approved these illegal activities on its network and only paid lip service to its own terms and conditions,” he said.
AFACT stressed the act of making material available online constituted a contravention of copyright in itself but iiNet retorted with the claim that the party which ‘fetches’ the data is the one responsible.
In the ISP’s summary of defence, iiNet takes “make available online” as communicating material “to the public”. Under the section 22 of the Copyright Act, the “person responsible for determining the content of the communication” is the person who makes the communication, not the person who holds the data.
AFACT’s barrister further attacked the defendant with discovery documents that claim to reveal how iiNet perpetuated its culture of inaction after acquiring ISP, Westnet.
The plaintiff claimed iiNet abandoned Westnet’s former policy of informing infringing customers after the acquisition in order to make more money.
“The message this sends iiNet customers is that they can rest assured that iiNet will not enforce its customer agreement,” Bannon said during proceedings. “iiNet does not want to enforce its customer agreement because it does not want to lose those customers because it was afraid of losing revenue.”
The court case continues tomorrow.
Not up-to-date with the history of the case? Click here for a timeline.
- Bookmark this page
- Share this article
- Got more on this story? Email ARN
- Follow ARN on twitter
- Virtualization and Consolidation Solutions
- New Gateway Anti-Malware Technology Sets the Bar for Web Threat Protection (Sponsored by McAfee)
- Cloud and Co-Location Solutions
- Modernizing Security for the Small and Mid-Sized Business – Recommendations for 2013 (Sponsored by McAfee)
- MSP Guides for effective Endpoint Management Solutions
-
Barracuda Networks raises free capacity of Copy.com to 15GB
-
Barracuda Networks raises free capacity of Copy.com to 15GB
-
Barracuda Networks raises free capacity of Copy.com to 15GB
-
Barracuda Networks raises free capacity of Copy.com to 15GB
-
Barracuda Networks raises free capacity of Copy.com to 15GB
Get exclusive access to ARN's news, research and invitation only events. 
Comments
Ricko
1
Heres a thought.
I dont see why they go after ISP's when its the people who copy that shit in the first place that are breaking the law. And, so what, because AFACT and all its associates cannot control the copying of their media, the ISP's must now foot the bill? They must now hire staff to investigate everyones connection, violating privacy laws. Even if they did, people would move to new ISP and do the same thing. And arent we looking at the big pciture here? How about companies within AFACT start selling content on the internet at a good price like $5 a movie. Instead of $15 for amovie that's been out since the dawn of time on i-tunes. Then the movies will be so cheap it would not be worth copying them. After all it should be a heck load cheaper because no media or printing is used. Its just straight copying. But no, that might mean that organisations within AFACT would loose revenue. But then again, think of all the revenue lost from pirating, and think about gained revenue when pirating ceases to exist????
Hellfire
2
Is it Legal fo AFACT to monitor individuals Internet use
Surely it is illegal for AFACT to monitor what individuals do on the internet or am I mistaken? Surely if their monitoring is legal they should be persuing the downloaders directly through legal channels prior to trying to get an ISP to cut off their service which would be a punishment without any legal support. Also all the arguement that their clients loose money is absolutely unfounded as very few of the downloaders would buy the music or movies anyway. And then hoe do you address video stores whose customers hire a movie foe a dollar or two and copy it on their computer equiptment.
This case should be thrown out of court. ISP's only supply the internet and I certainly do not want my privacy infringed upon as to how and what I do on the internet.
Anonymous
3
"But then again, think of all the revenue lost from pirating"
Wait, what?
1 pirated copy does not translate to 1 lost sale.
This isn't theft, people pirate because there is a way to get the material with no obligation to pay and little chance of any repercussions for doing so.
There is zero guarantee that if pirated copies of everything disappeared tomorrow, that people would actually start buying what they were pirating.
Anonymous
4
They are not monitoring anyone. They simply connected to other peers seeding a torrent, probably waited for them to upload part of the copyrighed work to them and recorded their IP. AFACT only has their IP and hence cannot identify who that IP is associated to, hence they complain to the ISP to which that IP has been allocated to.
Anonymous
5
Re: They are not monitoring
In other words, they are actively participating in the act of the copyright infringement that they are attempting to prosecute?
One2Many
6
AFACT is wrong
AFACT is taking the ISPs to court but they forget that every store that sells blank DVDs and CDs is also actively encouraging piracy through the sale of blank media. My argument is if they are not lodging any claims against every store that sells blanks they are knowingly accepting the distribution of copyrighted materials so why pick on the ISP?