Taking Aussies to court over film piracy: Deterrent or money-making machine?
- 06 October, 2011 15:21
- Comments 5
A new anti-film piracy group has hit the headlines over its intention to take legal action against individual alleged copyright infringers in Australia on behalf of film studios. But some observers have questioned the efficacy of this tactic in deterring piracy and whether this is just a ploy for studios – and their lawyers - to make an easy buck.
Exetel chief, John Linton, first flagged the existence of the Movie Rights Group on his personal blog.
He claimed a new group, representing US film studio, Lightning Entertainment, contacted his company’s lawyers requesting the information on Exetel subscribers believed to have illegally downloaded movies belonging to the studio.
The Movie Rights Group, based in Queensland, offers an all-round service to content owners from identifying illegal downloaders and issuing infringement notices to taking legal action and handling pre-Court settlements.
According to Linton’s blog, the group noted it had 9000 Australian IP addresses, 150 belonging to Exetel, which were involved with alleged illegal downloading of content from Lightening Entertainment.
For those threatened with legal action, the Movie Rights Group strongly advises them to settle the matter out of Court. In fact, it has an entire section on its website dedicated to extolling the benefits of settling the case to “avoid costly and time-consuming Court appearances”.
But this is the kind of thing that concerns critics such as Queensland University of Technology (QUT) School of Law lecturer and former Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) chair, Nic Suzor.
“We’ve seen these lawsuits in the US and it is a worrying process in which people are heavily pushed into settling allegations of copyright infringement rather than going to Court for assessment of damages,” he said.
Suzor estimates about 200,000 suits of this sort have been filed in US though it has not been done in Australia before.
Locally, a swathe of film studios, through the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), tried to make ISPs accountable for the piracy of their subscribers by filing a Court case against iiNet.
The case was dismissed in the Federal Court in February 2010. It was later dismissed again in an appeal to the Full Federal Court a year later. Now the case will go to the High Court in Canberra in December.
Certainly if all the lawsuits went through the Courts, the journey might not be very worthwhile – monetarily – for content owners.
“It would probably cost more to take individuals through the courts than what copyright holders are going to get out of it,” University of Technology (UTS) Faculty of Law professor, Natalie Stoianoff, said. “It is not a likely scenario for [copyright holders] to take individuals to Court unless they have been engaged in the commercial distribution of content.”
People convicted of copyright infringement in Court are often asked to pay damages to the copyright holder though this process differs between the US and Australia.
“In the US we have what is called statutory damages, which essentially means at a copyright trial, the copyright owner doesn’t have to prove actual damages; they can get statutory award of a specific amount per infringement,” Suzor said. “In Australia we don’t have that.”
According to the QUT lecturer, assessment of damages is left up to the Court which has some discretion to award not only actual harm of profits but also additional damages for punitive reasons.
He saw this as the best approach but is worried people will be coerced to settle the case outside of Court in fear of having to foot a behemoth legal bill.
The average cost to settle a case is around $3000, according to Suzor.
“Rather than facing the possibility of paying legal costs, which in many cases would be more than the damages awarded, people would be likely to settle,” he said. “It’s dangerous because it [removes] control of remedies and punishments for copyright from the Courts and that’s dangerous for the legitimacy of our copyright system.”
Pirate Party member and former president, David Crafti, saw it as profiteering.
“With regards to Movie Rights Group, I see this move to set up shop here in order to sue people as just another cynical move by the copyright industry to make money from the knowledge that a portion of people will be too scared to fight claims of infringement, even when innocent, and will instead choose to settle,” he told ARN in an email. “… If [the group] sues each person for $3000 and on average spend just a few dollars per person in processing costs, then the group knows they’ll get a rate of settlements, say 10 per cent, which gives them around a 10,000 per cent rate of return.”
Crafti claims this model is now ineffective in the US due to changes in the process which destroys the high rate of return.
“That’s why they come to Australia.”
Suzor agreed this method appears to be more about making money than stopping content pirates.
“It seems to be more a revenue generating model than a serious deterrent model,” he said. “…“We have seen certain enterprising lawyers pick up on these sorts of techniques in order to make a profit and I think that is the key distinction.”
Many sizable copyright holders, such as big movie studios, have already shifted their focus from litigation to educating users on piracy as well as providing legitimate ways to access content, according to Suzor.
The legal path, he said, is now view as an unpopular route.
ARN was unable to reach the Movie Rights Group for comment at the time of publication.
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Comments
Lachlan
1
Quite obviously a marketing tactic. Has been done many times before and Australia took the bait. Now a movie no one has heard of is in the headlines. The legal aspect of this is sketchy at best.
bagpiper
2
They make a good point, at 9000 users if 10% pay up in fear they will get 2.7 million, currently what info I could find says they only got 1.1million at the box office. For the price of a court application (is 75 bucks in some juristictions for lower courts) they can triple their income.
bob
3
piracy or speeding tickets, just a legalised means of fleecing the people and giving nothing in return. Anyone who's been to see movies recently ..last 10 or so years knows they're all rubbish.
Music is nothing more than copied, dubbed, tripped,hip-hopped version of songs that have been around for at least 25 years now .. do these people PAY the originals creators...I would think not...and they call people pirates, check your backyards first corporate scumbags!
Kevin
4
Beforeof ranting and blaming illegal downloaders for affecting their bottom line, and numerous surveys have shown that is not true, the movie industry really need to look at themselves and what is happening in this world
People spend most of their entertainment money on home systems. Big screen TVs with surround sound speaker systems.Many new homes have replaced the tradition family room into a mini theatre.
Under 22 year old males spend most of their spare cash on gaming machines and games. Young couples are more likely to be playing games, socializing on the Internet or watching Steven Spielberg's latest TV offering on their 50" screen at home.
3D may well be the last gimmick movie theatres have and even that is now available for the home TV.
So what now movie moguls.
The Internet needs content and as time goes by it will need masses amounts.
That is where your future is. Forget the movie theatres they are as good as gone. Time to concentrate on creating and delivering products straight into people's home theatres.
All the ranting, raving and threats of law suits will not make one dent into the road that has already been paved. Embrace the new media or perish.
Here is a fact. I broadcast over an Internet radio station and play 50% or more music from unsigned independent artists. Overall sales for these artists, who sell their products online only, is increasing at huge rate. Their music is as good as any recorded by major studios and the artists return for 1000 sales is higher than 10,000 via a record company.
As technology improves and becomes cheaper home made movies may well reach the same standard.
soup
5
Something that i have thought of for a while is this.
If someone has a Optus TV package & and an Optus internet package. All in bound entertainment is coming through the same lines . So with this in mind.
If you download a movie via a torrent through your internet that is going to be shown on Optus TV in the near future that you will pay no more or no less to watch on your TV.
The argument then becomes more about when you watched it rather than if you paid for it or not. ( if you would never of gone to a cinema anyway )
So neither Optus or the film company is out of pocket as it would of come down the same line to you eventually.
So i cant see what their problem would be.
1:They would never have got paid as you were never going to go to the cinema.
2:You have paid your optus TV bill & internet bill as per normal.
3:The same amount of information has been delivered to your home.
For the Film industry to cry they were robbed is the equivalent of car manufacturers claiming the loss of 100,000 car sales due to cars being stolen.
Just because someone takes a Car does not mean that he was going to buy one if he steal one.
Maybe the film industry needs to provide a different go to market system that allows people the ability to get their product free of charge for the end user and then charge providers
( ie:optus internet ) this way we would choose our providers based on the amount of stuff they throw into our package.
just my 2 cents. and love to hear what others think?
I,m not saying i,m correct its just a thought.