good news for downloaders

[Berkeley_Eagle]

Film industry loses landmark piracy case

    * By staff writers
    * From: news.com.au
    * February 04, 2010 10:41AM

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/breaking-news/film-industry-loses-landmark-piracy-case/story-e6freuyi-1225826647748

INTERNET service provider iiNet has won a major legal battle over whether it should be held responsible for its customers downloading content illegally.

The case, against the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft, could have had major implications for the way internet providers police their users.

If AFACT had won, providers would likely have been forced to penalise or disconnect users who illegally downloaded copyrighted material such as movies and songs.

However Federal Court judge Justice Dennis Cowdroy today found iiNet was not responsible for the infringements of its users.

"It is impossible to conclude that iiNet has authorised copyright infringement... (it) did not have relevant power to prevent infringements occurring," Justice Cowdroy said in his judgment.

Justice Cowdroy recommended the application be dismissed and that AFACT pay the court costs.

 

[ManlyBacker]

I never thought they would win. The point is that they went after the provider on the basis that they were responsible for knowing what content was being downloaded. On that same basis a provider could face charges of knowingly allowing the distribution of child pornography (for example) and would enforce the monitoring of all users activity. Most cases have been won by tracing specific content to individuals.

 

[Zep]

Yeah, and the way that most movies are downloaded via bittorrent makes it nigh on impossible to determine whether or not it makes up a copyrighted file. You would have to look on the users comp for any comparison.

 

[fLIP]

This is what Rudd's government will slowly learn. You just can't possibly censor the internet or control what people have access to on it. You also cannot hold anybody but the law breaking individual at fault.

Just because Holden sold me a car that can break the speed limit doesn't mean they are at fault when i kill a family of 5 doing it.

 

[Zep]

This is what Rudd's government will slowly learn. You just can't possibly censor the internet or control what people have access to on it. You also cannot hold anybody but the law breaking individual at fault.

Just because Holden sold me a car that can break the speed limit doesn't mean they are at fault when i kill a family of 5 doing it.

Internet censorship is truly wrong, very wrong!

 

[Matabele]

These record/movie companies need to take responsibility for their own business model.  If they provided what their customers wanted, rather than use them as an opportunity to screw every last cent out of them, perhaps they wouldn't have such a problem with the take-up on pirating.  A lot of pirating is about chasing choices that the big companies won't provide.

 

[fLIP]

Not to mention mata, these industries need to be cautious of biting the hand that feeds them.

Digital distribution these days (without knowing exact figures) has to be worth more dollars than any of us could ever imagine.

 

[Zep]

If CD's were under 10 dollars a pop instead of over 35 for new ones that might find people would start buying them again. I like the idea that you have the CD + a the availability to copy from said CD or a second CD the digital version of it.

 

[fLIP]

I ALWAYS buy the CD.

A couple of years back i did a format of my computer. I did not backup my itunes music because i was of the impression it was much like steam gaming network. You buy content, you own the content, you have the right to download that content whenever you choose an unlimited number of times.

WRONG! I had to go through a rigmaroll to allow apple to let me download my music again.

The second time, when my hard drive crashed, well that was just too many times for them. $200 - $300 worth of music gone.

This is due to some bull**** about apple paying a licence fee everytime they let a person download a song from memory.

Still I bought the music surly i own the right to access it, whether its on my hard drive or their servers.

 

[Canteen Worker]

Flip - I regularly back up my music onto a hard disk that gets stored separately. What gets me is that Apple plus others charge $1.69 per song here (sometimes $2.19) and in the US they charge 99c.

There aint that much difference in the exchange rate!!!!