AFACT v iiNet: Day 3 – Studios Promoted BitTorrent
Written by enigmax on October 08, 2009As the court case between anti-piracy group AFACT and ISP iiNet moves into its third day, an interesting element to the ISPs defense has been revealed. iiNet claims that the studios had contractual agreements with BitTorrent Inc, and even promoted their companies on BitTorrent.com, a confusing situation for potential downloaders.
It’s day three in the landmark case of AFACT – representing several Hollywood studios – and Aussie ISP iiNet (earlier coverage of day one and day two).
Today a very interesting and somewhat unexpected angle to iiNet’s defense was revealed by the ISP’s barrister, Richard Cobden.
Earlier AFACT had insisted that iiNet did nothing to discourage its subscribers from downloading copyright material and therefore condoned their behavior, but it seems that the studios aren’t exactly blameless when it comes to encouraging the use of BitTorrent.
It now appears that the studios themselves were a source of potential confusion experienced by new BitTorrent users when they were trying to decide (if they were aware at all) what is ok to download and what is not when using the protocol.
Cobden told the court that several of the plaintiffs and members of the MPAA had previously entered into contracts with BitTorrent Inc, the source of the official BitTorrent software.
Furthermore, the logos of these studios appeared prominently on BitTorrent.com and also on Mininova, leading Cobden to declare that the studios “….have engaged, at least from the logo on BitTorrent Inc, in the promotion of BitTorrent, the vehicle for all infringement in this case.”
Cobden then went on to show how a user would go about obtaining the BitTorrent client, noting the above-mentioned logos were placed directly under the ‘free download’ link for the official BitTorrent client.
Once the client was downloaded, the user was then prompted to start searching the web for things to download, but despite the contracts between the studios’ and BitTorrent Inc, nowhere did it indicate that users should not download the studios material, said Cobden.
Downloads of pirate material could be found a couple of clicks away from the studios logos, he added, including links to Torrentz.com and Mininova. Furthermore, despite the agreements the studios had with BitTorrent.com, iiNet had no relationship with that or any other torrent site.
Cobden went on to say that while AFACT seemed only too happy to pressure iiNet to take action against alleged copyright infringers, it took no action against them directly, preferring the ISP to carry the costs of defending the studios’ copyrights instead.
He said that the studios had put forth ”exuberant rhetoric” in respect of the alleged infringements, but iiNet said it conducted itself in similar ways to its rivals Telstra and Optus – who it appears also took no action based on AFACT allegations.
Time and again AFACT has claimed that since iiNet took no action against its allegedly infringing subscribers, this was tantamount to condoning their illegal activities, but unfortunately for the anti-piracy group, this argument was quickly turned around on them by iiNet’s lawyer.
Since AFACT nor the studios took any legal action directly against alleged copyright infringers, they too must’ve condoned their copyright infringements.
The case continues.
Previously: Copyright Drama Prevents Artist From Sharing Music on MySpace
Next: Anti-Pirates Try to Nail The Pirate Bay with Faked Evidence
80 Responses
Love it! Go iiNet!!
Very good: Beat AFACT with their own weapons.
Owned
Slowly but surely the piratebay has become just like the people they hate so much.
It went wrong when they chose to get involved with a Nazi investor. Then they got addicted to the big bucks and others got addicted to them.
They have betrayed a lot of their friends at several internet business (by using their infrastructure without permission which would get their friends into legal trouble) and now they’ve ended up at the company of a person who has been arrested for involvement with large scale XTC production, who has admitted himself that he was operating the largest online porn distribution center in Europe and has been tied to a scam involving domain squatting.
Furthermore, the new friend of The Piratebay has time and again threatened several tech persons and internet companies if they wouldn’t follow his instructions.
The Pirate Bay is going down and they try to take as many people with them as possible. At all costs.
Slowly but surely the piratebay has become just like the people they hate so much.
It went wrong when they chose to get involved with a Nazi investor. Then they got addicted to the big bucks and others got addicted to them.
They have betrayed a lot of their friends at several internet business (by using their infrastructure without permission which would get their friends into legal trouble) and now they’ve ended up at the company of a person who has been arrested for involvement with large scale XTC production, who has admitted himself that he was operating the largest online porn distribution center in Europe and has been tied to a scam involving domain squatting.
Also, the new friend of The Piratebay has time and again threatened several tech persons and internet companies if they wouldn’t follow his instructions.
The Pirate Bay is going down and they try to take as many people with them as possible. No matter what the cost.
Go iinet.. im TPG, so what happens to them will/may happen to other Aussie ISP’s
Awesome :) Very nice move there.
@ A Shame
What on earth does the court case involving iiNet and AFACT have to do with your dribble regarding TPB?
Get a life!
Studios don’t give away movies for free, period. And anyone can put up a logo.
Movie studios do not give away movies for free, period. And anyone can put a logo on a website.
Better to go after Escobar than going after the junkie, not?
Illegal downloaders should have their houses and cars reposessed. That will learn them to steal stuff that doesnt belong to them.
@ strongbad
investigators are connected to TPG…
@10 “Reasoned Mind”
You are not the real “Reasoned Mind”. Your knowledge of grammar, as in “that will learn them” is laughable and something the real Reasoned Mind can articulate beyond the level of a 12 year old.
@8
Not just anyone put a logo on the site. BitTorrent Inc did so under agreements with the movie studios. The movie studios went out of their way to be associated with BitTorrent Inc, the official site of the protocol in all these cases.
Good strategy. Better to go after Escobar than going after a junkie, not?
at#5. if iiNet lose, it will affect the other Oz isps. unfortunately, it will not stop there. country by country, the industries will continue until they get complete control of the entire internet around the entire world. that has always been their ultimate aim. anyone that cant see that is wearing blinkers. as i said before, if they had managed to get hold of bittorrent and use it to make money, stopping everyone else from using it unless they paid, there would be a totally different scenario and attitude. it would have been very forcefully promoted, not condemned, as it is now.
“Illegal downloaders should have their houses and cars reposessed.”
You wouldn’t download a car, would you? :-)
iiNET sure planned out one hell of an argument. Genius.
So the movie industry promotes bit-torrent software then doesn’t tell anybody not to download anything that mite have a copyright on it and then goes after the ISP because there customers used the software they helped promote, NICE SETUP MOVIE INDUSTRY.
Excellent argument. One of the best in Bittorrent cases.
http://pirlog.com
@ Reasoned mind
Do I go to a music shop and steal music? NO…I copy and share music, I don’t steal it…
Come to my house with some weirdo device that can copy/paste my Mini Cooper S and I’ll even offer you a lemonade while we’re waiting for it to finnished copying…
Go iiNet!!
HAHAHAHA! Fantastic.
@20
address please… be there soon.
oh, may also be worth sending your support to iiNET. Let them know that not only thier customers appreciate that they don’t roll over at the hint of any claim of infringement.
https://toolbox.iinet.net.au/cgi-bin/contact_form.cgi?type=sales
Everyone has the right to comment on this site. Reasoned Mind has got his own opinion. Of course it’s pure crap but he knows it too. He just does this for fun. Let me tell you reasoned mind that I’ve never ever bought a dvd in my life and the movie industry is still rich! Can I do anything to make them lose money? Unfortunately, I can’t. Wish I could make them though.
why are they fucking going behind every ISP… bittorrent will always rule the world no matter what these fucking law firms and copright people say
THE PIRATEBAY WILL LIVE FOREVER!
@16
No, but if a mate of mine offered to burn me a copy…. ;)
@23: Not only that but the “real” Reasoned Mind has a knack for ONLY replying to topics that suit his cause.
not to defend Reasoned Mind, but he did reply to the article about some guy not being able to publish his own stuff on Myface.
though his argument was that this was an isolated insident. then it was shown to him, that this was not an isolated insident for Warner, he switched to saying that this was a problem with only warner and not any other studio.
well, big deal dude, warner is one of the biggest corporations on earth. if they ARE evil, that means a big portion of the music industry is evil.
@9 Oct 08, 2009 at 11:46 by LOL:
LoL
Studios don’t give movies for free?
TV, Hulu and fearnet are what then?
LoL
There are a few strange double posts today under different names. I think TF is infested today with undesirables. And all those saying better go after escobar, it would be easier to do since hes dead!! shot by the police.
I sure hope iiNet win this case or it could be a precedent to stick it to the rest of the world. Some people say that it will push filesharing underground and never will be stopped. I agree it will never be stopped, which is good. But putting it underground would be a bad thing, cause we need all the public to use filesharing so it becomes the normal thing to do and then the governments will have to legalise filesharing for non-comercial use and the cartels will be forced to think of a way to use filesharing to their advantage and turn more profit with it.
iiNet for the win!!!
These days, pretty much all major P2P court cases have repercussions all over the world.
Just look at the copyright farce. At first it was reasonable. Then the US upped it by a few years. The EU followed suit to ‘keep up’ with ‘international standards’ (set, of course, by the lobbyists. The US then extended copyright terms again, and the EU upped theirs as well, again.
I don’t think it’s much different with P2P. The media (who have everything to gain by shutting down P2P) will say their own country should be ashamed of not keeping up with ‘international standards’ and that we must evolve technologically or become a backwards laughing stock.
All of these cases matter to some degree, some more, some less. In my opinion whatever the court decides for iinet will be forced upon every single ISP in Australia.
@36 Oct 08, 2009 at 15:27 by strange double posts:
It doesn’t matter what a court of law decides.
“All roads leads to Rome”
A political system is only good if the people follow and believe in it, once it looses respect governments have real power to stop anything short of using the military.
A political system is only good if the people follow it and believe in it, once it looses respect the governments have only one real power to deter something like this, the use of military force against its own people.
And I will love to see them try that venue.
All roads eventually will lead to sharing so doesn’t worries me which road it takes I know were it will end up LoL
Owned.Good lawyer’s iinet has lol
By forcing ISP’s to take responsibility for what their subscribers are downloading, major record labels are insisting that all data on the internet must be filtered and censored. Surely, no one in their right mind, not even anti-piracy outfits could possibly think this is possible, ethical or remotely acceptable. Essentially, they want to totally abolish any and all net-neutrality. Where the hell is Anonymous, 4Chan and The Pirate Party when you need them?
Rejoicing over a biased, factually inaccurate article posted on a website that promotes copyright infringement is the expected response of an average pirate.
however, from the view of an average law-abiding and reasoned citizen, the lawyer of iiNet made the worst defense he could. Claiming iiNet, whose profit is generated from its customers’ criminal activies should be treated equally with the original copyright holders is a complete nonsense. And the claim is also factually inaccurate – the copyright holders are after a big, registered corporate entity which just admitted its source of income is tolerating the criminal activities of its own subscribers.
filesharing, bittorrenting, peer-to-peer, or piracy is an organised crime. now it has been established that iinet is actually ‘organsing’ the crime by selling and promoting packages for copyright infringement. indeed, they could be even financially responsible for the losses of many artists and creators whose copyrights are completely mutilated by those who think a movie studio’s logo on piracy website justifies their crime.
@9
Actually, they did, 3 years ago you might remember that BitTorrent was attempting to legitimize their site by basically selling out to the studios. Every week there were FREE movies up for you to download. Unfortunately the service flopped due to heavy DRM and limitations on the service as a whole. Basically the studios blew it, not the pirates.
@29 and 32 and anyone else.
Look I don’t disagree with anyone replying on this forum, but it is pretty darned obvious that the arse clown for post #13 was not the real reasoned mind, because they were an illiterate idiot. While I may not agree with him in many instances I at least have a respect for him and therefore his “screen name” and therefoe the right to reply under his own “handle”, which was obviously post #45.
The copy cat, “jump on boards” should get a life and use their own “title”
That’s not the real ReasonedMind at #45. He writes a lot better than that.
For one thing, he uses proper capitalization. Look at the lack of capitalization at #45.
The “ReasonedMind” will live on forever in the false posts of the many here who hope to emulate his well reasoned and factually accurate style, but are too weak to create a recognizable persona of their own.
RM ftw.
@45 the real “Reasoned Mind”
P2P is organised crime? are you nuts? Organised crime is only interested in making money from illegal activity. Where is the profit margin from P2P sharing? There is none! No one pays a cent for anything, so therefore organised crime really will focus their attention on drugs and the other wonderful things that make shed loads of money.
As for facilitating copyright crime….what about the recent post about the music label SELLING copyrighted songs without permission? Maybe those labels should be sued for multi millions by the public DA’s!
iiNet’s profits are generated by providing a service for people to access the internet. Much the same way that telcom companys provide pay phones and pagers that are used by the majority of dug dealers around the world. Maybe the gov’t should also be sued as well for providing highways that allow people to speed, rather than simple dirt tracks, which don’t! – Broadband v dial up.
The major labels are all about trying to control the internet, so they can be the main beneficiary from the massive profits which are due to be realised in the future. And in their view it is to hell with anyones human rights!
@ The doctor #52.
You fell for it. lol
That wasn’t the real ReasonedMind at #45.
lol my bad.
@48, 49, 50, 51
Did you not read what he wrote? Those of use that have read many of his posts in the past can recognise his language and style of writing. Can you not?
His replys are also slightly longer than 2 short paragraphs. Damn there are some idiots here.
“Reasoned Mind has got his own opinion. Of course it’s pure crap but he knows it too. ”
No but reasoned mind and the other aliases he is using is a pay troll working for a company on the side of the recording industry as a contractor.
We have identified the company and now we are in the process to identifying the client.
Once done we will publish the result.
This seem very interesting!
@52
Wow, what a victory!
Best leave your step father’s basement now and go to school.
The comment about “arse clowns” by #47 is correct. By copying their names as your own all you do is show a lack of originality to become involved in a proper discussion and therefore divert the discussion towards another issue.
18 anonymouse said:
“if iiNet lose, it will affect the other Oz isps.”
……………………….
Which is not true. If iiNet lose (in a hypothetical case), this ONLY means that iiNet could not defend properly, that’s all. There exist very good arguments and actions for nullifying successfully any charges of copyright infringement, and any ISP or person can use it without problems, independently if iiNet wins or not.
45 Reasoned TROLL said:
“now it has been established that iinet is actually ‘organsing’ the crime by selling and promoting packages for copyright infringement.”
……………………….
The only thing that clearly has been established here is that you are an IMBECILE of high degree who lacks of arguments.
Suggesting that an ISP is responsible for the actions of its users is the same as saying that a telephone company is responsible too for the content or information exchanged in the conversations of its users, from any point of view, complete NONSENSE.
Moreover, any ISP and any telephone company are mediums of comunication, and obviously, they charge for that service, independently of the type of information which is exchanged between users. Suggesting that iiNet is responsible for the type of content exchanged between their users is ridiculous, absurd and without any legal basis. This is only another caprice from the obsolete USA record labels.
Holy shit, great lawyer!
Dingo calm down. You are arguing with an impostor troll. It’s not me. I’m at work at the moment. You really can’t tell the difference?
lol
“great”
lol #4, nice story. Go write a book or something.
Very nice move! I hope they will wint the case!
are you guys stupid? why post anonymously, or use a nick that even a 4-year kid would laugh at? we can always go under the name of king Reasoned Mind.
Reasoned Mind 63
To be of reasoned mind you first must have one. And you are sandwich short of a picnic never mind.
im with optus sucked in iinet
I just have to get in on this conversation. I spelled Reasoned Mind backwards. Ha!
This article shows more proof the copyright morons are all hypocrites. But, AFACT will probably get away with it, as these corporations always do. :P
LIES! LIES! THEY ARE ALL LIES!
Good good, a promising update.
Nice one.
Go iiNet.
Niiice, AFACT. Just keep digging yourself a bigger hole, we don’t mind…
@ Reasoned Mind >>>>>>> PLEASE define illegal downloader……………………………..fool………..in the words of my good friend MR T …. quit your jibba jabba and get some NUTS omg how can people be so uneducated :( makes me sad for the masses :(
btw reasoned mind is #13
@ ~64 outlaw i wish i read your post b 4 posting i think you’ve put it in perspective ……..
comments PLEASE……..
@#72 no, that’s not Reasoned Mind at #13.
“That will LEARN them…..?”
lol at least the real RM is educated and writes well.
Still wrapping my head around this: Studios paid to be advertised specifically on the BitTorrent website, and to have their content featured as the “Internet’s Richest Media” that BitTorrent provides access to?
Fire the idiots who spent money on losing money.
Nothing tells the user that using BitTorrent to download stuff is possibly illegal in your jurisdiction. Click on slide 1, featuring stuff like “Harry Potter” and “The Simpsons”, type in any of them at the search box and find torrents of them. Wait! You still need the BitTorrent client! Click download, do so, and you’re ready! Nowhere is the user told of the possible legal consequences!
Maybe there aren’t, since the studios are directly endorsing the use of p2p to download their content.
Of course, there are, since they are always suing people for using torrents.
If they don’t want people using torrents, they shouldn’t associate themselves with torrents. It’s stupid and counterproductive.
@75
“If they don’t want people using torrents, they shouldn’t associate themselves with torrents. It’s stupid and counterproductive.”
Yeah but they do want people using torrents, if people didn’t they wouldn’t be able to sue anyone now would they?
Good on them, im currently with Telstra but considering changing to iiNet due to the strong stand they have taken in this case
I hope iiNet wins and AFACT can go fuck itself
@44 You sir, are an idiot and a buffoon.
Case in point: “filesharing, bittorrenting, peer-to-peer, or piracy is an organised crime.” [SIC]
Sure it is. That’s why Microsoft has called it Peer-To-Peer and it has had support since Windows XP Service Pack 1 via the Advanced Networking Pack for Windows XP.
http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/F/1/2F1A22FD-E838-4BC6-AC40-FBDBCC3A17A4/ANP_FAQ.htm
From the FAQ:
Q: What is the Windows Peer-to-Peer Networking Infrastructure?
A: Windows Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Networking is a developer platform to create P2P applications for computers running Windows XP. Windows P2P networking allows application developers to utilize powerful personal computers that exist at the edge of the Internet, to create exciting new distributed applications. P2P technology provides an opportunity to make existing applications work together in new and useful ways. For more information see: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/p2p.
But we won’t let something so silly as facts get in the way, shall we?
@77 I agree with you. I never said (nor ever believed) P2P was any sort of problem. It’s a brilliant technology with a huge positive potential.
It’s the misuse of that technology I write about here.
And #44 was spoofed. I may not always agree with the majority here, but I post better thought out positions than that. Sorry about the confusion. We can also agree that #44 is an idiot and a buffoon.
Just making a correction to some of the statements made here about Herman Xennt.
The patent he filed was abandoned. It contained no new process or method that could be patented.
regards
joe baptista
lol ) owned )
I’ve never been prouder to be an iiNet customer, and I’m honored to say that I used to work for them JUST as they were becoming “big”. The culture at iiNet was much more a REAL version of Google’s “Don’t be evil” than Google has ever managed to pull off.
Keep it up Michael Malone! I love your company!
oh damn, when is iiNet comming to my country? I’m gonna be their 1st costumer lmao.
No. This is utter bollocks.
The contracts arose from copyright cases against these so called BitTorrent promoters – they didn’t pin their flags to the BitTorrent masts like this lynch-mob site suggests.
Get it in perspective!
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like 2 sea them go after telstra and optus with this rubbish court case they know they cant they have as much money as them lol. might have more of a chance when telstra gets broken up i suppose
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