IIA to develop copyright code in light of iiNet v AFACT judgement
- 11 March, 2011 12:31
- Comments 2
The Internet Industry Association (IIA) is set to draw up an Industry Copyright Code to clarify the role of ISPs should they be accused of content piracy online.
The move comes after the Full Bench of the Federal Court dismissed AFACT’s appeal of its copyright case against Perth-based ISP, iiNet.
Click here for a complete timeline of the iiNet v AFACT copyright court case
While it was another victory for iiNet after initially winning the case in February 2010, the appeal judgement raised questions around circumstances in which ISPs are liable for copyright infringement by its users.
The judgement opened up the opportunity for rights owners to make ISPs disconnect customers suspected of online piracy provided that additional information and indemnities for wrongful disconnection were offered along with a copyright infringement notice.
“What we want to do now is define for the industry clearer standards so if certain circumstances were to arise, slightly different from the exact issues in the iiNet case, which involved liability we would have an appropriate industry response,” IIA chief, Peter Coroneos, said. “In some respects the ground rules have shifted a bit so therefore we need to develop an appropriate code that enables ISPs to manage their risk in this new environment.”
IIA will first consult with the ISP industry to gather their views on what they see now as their liabilities in order to get an general consensus around an appropriate industry response.
But Coroneos made it clear the IIA did not see disconnection of customers accused of copyright infringement as an appropriate response.
The code is only one aspect of addressing the clash between content owners and ISPs, according to the IIA chief. Ultimately, content holders need to change their business models, he said.
AFACT had said the film industry has been pulling its weight in terms of updating content delivery models. The group noted there were more than 27 legitimate businesses offering legal entertainment content online.
“I acknowledge there has been some progress made over by rights owners regarding content delivery in the last few years but I don’t agree with the proposition that there is no problem here,” Coroneos said.
“There is still what we might term friction in the system making it hard for traditional content services to be offered online and we really want to explore where those impediments are.”
The IIA has also renewed its legislative efforts to extend safe harbour currently in the Copyright Act to cover intermediaries beyond ISPs.
"This has left search providers, social network media, universities, auction sites, hosting and cloud services, corporate networks and others exposed to potential liability for the infringing acts of their users,” Coroneos said in a statement.
"This serious omission impacts on the risk position of such players and impedes innovation and investment in the digital economy.”
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Comments
RP
A couple of things to comment on:
Coroneos appears to have back down on his manifesto document released only last year here:
http://iia.net.au/images/resources/pdf/manifesto-2010.pdf
On Page 36, the IIA states:
"The IIA has consistently opposed three strikes or “graduated response” solutions to infringement by private individuals, that is where ISPs would be required to threaten and ultimately to disconnect users who are alleged to have infringed
copyright (which proponents of three strikes label ‘repeat infringers’)."
They further go on to say:
"As a matter of principle, an intermediary who is acting as a mere conduit (ie: doing nothing more than providing the means of communication or a corporate network – or by extension a technology, search, publishing or sale platform such as an auction site, or an educational institution), should not be liable for the acts of its users where those users abuse facilities to breach third party rights. This is particularly the case in a user generated content world"
So is the IIA now saying that ISPs have a responsibility to do something?
D
A much simpler way to fix this or at least reduce it would be for movie production companies to stop being so greedy.
The majority of people only download movies because otherwise your expected to pay $15 - $30 for 1 movie... which is beyond ridiculous, why on earth would anyone pay $60 - $120 for 4 movies a month when for that same amount of cash you can get a internet plan with 50 - 100+GB of data and download 40 movies and still have plenty of bandwidth left to do whatever else you feel like.
The further fact is most movies make far more then their capital outlay just at the cinema's, before they even charge the ridiculous prices in retail stores - so considered that a DVD costs less then $0.50, the case and label costs maybe $1.00, you have to wonder what the rest of the money is going to.
As long that continues, piracy will continue... simple as that, it's literally impossible to stop it, which was reinforced when Napster was killed off only to be replaced by 10 new P2P programs, now we have multiple flavors of torrents with hundred's of torrent sites to choose from, VPN & Proxies to use to hide where and who we are, programs like Peer Guardian, etc.
The idea of writing a code to stop this is going to end up no more than being a huge expense that doesn't really prevent anything - where there's a will there's a way, people will find a way around it.
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