ARN

AFACT pressures ISPs to fulfil “obligations” against content piracy

Anti-piracy group has used recent Federal Court judgements from its iiNet case to ask ISPs to join its fight against copyright infringement online.

The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) has been issuing letters to ISPs imploring them to work with the anti-piracy organisation to "fulfil their obligations".

AFACT has been in embroiled in a Federal Court case with Perth-based ISP, iiNet, since 2009. The anti-piracy group accused iiNet of authorising film piracy by not preventing such activities by its subscriber base.

Click here for a complete timeline of the iiNet v AFACT copyright court case

Despite iiNet winning round one of Court proceedings, AFACT lodged an appeal to the Full Federal Court.

The appeal was dismissed but Full Court judgement opened up possibilities of ISPs being responsible for authorising content piracy due to shortcomings in their customer service agreements.

The Australian reported AFACT had recently sent letters to ISPs which suggest that they are obliged to work with the anti-piracy organisation. The group has confirmed this with ARN.

“The recent Federal Court ruling confirmed ISPs should play a role and obligations [in preventing online copyright theft],” an AFACT spokesperson said. “This is simply an invitation to ISP to work with us.”

Some ISPs including TPG and Exetel already automatically forward notices of infringement from AFACT to relevant customers. Many others have refused to do so.

While the Internet Industry Association (IIA) is working on drawing up an Industry Copyright Code to clarify what role ISPs should play in preventing content piracy, AFACT said it was not involved in the process.

“It’d be terrific if the code respects the Federal Court findings,” the AFACT spokesperson said. “We have not worked with the IIA and the letters went directly to ISPs.”

AFACT represents over 30 high-profile movie studios

Nominations for the 2012 ARN IT Industry Awards open on Tuesday, June 12.

References show all

Comments

1

Dan

Tue 12/07/2011 - 12:46

“It’d be terrific if the code respects the Federal Court findings,”

Would that be the finding where the federal court dismissed the appeal against the original ruling that found ISPs aren't liable for their users activities?

2

Rod

Fri 12/08/2011 - 14:01

They tried to pressure iiNet and lost, now they want to play the friendly card!

A lot of ISP were watching AFACT's behaviour against iiNet and lost a lot of goodwill in the process. Their business people should have weighed that up before they took on and lost to iiNet.

They tried to ram a flawed business model down customer's throats and wanted ISPs to be their policeman.

It was the wrong way to do things and AFACT now have few friends in the industry. Their fault, they can live it.

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the ARN comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), Exetel, iinet, ISPs, telco, telecommunications
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to ARN's news, research and invitation only events.
ARN Distributor Directory
Find distributors by name | vendor | location
Channel Deals
/deals/d-link/444_d-link-smb-june-promotion-reward-yourself
D-Link

D-Link SMB June Promotion - Reward Yourself

More details »
ARN Vendor Directory
Find vendors by name | category

iAsset is a channel management ecosystem that automates all major aspects of the entire sales,marketing and service process, including data tracking, integrated learning, knowledge management and product lifecycle management.