AFACT v iiNet: Half of All iiNet Traffic is BitTorrent
Written by enigmax on November 04, 2009Day eleven of the trial between anti-piracy group AFACT and Aussie ISP iiNet. The ISP’s CEO Michael Malone took the stand for the third day running and faced allegations that iiNet encouraged users to download music and TV shows, and actively pursued high bandwidth customers in order to boost company profits.
It’s day eleven in the copyright infringement case of AFACT – representing several Hollywood studios – and Aussie ISP iiNet (earlier coverage of day one, day two, day three, day four , day five, day six, day seven, day eight, day nine, day ten.
The case continued Wednesday in the Federal Court, with iiNet CEO Michael Malone taking the stand for the third consecutive day.
Again AFACT barrister Tony Bannon tried to portray iiNet as an encourager of copyright infringement on its network, by referring to iiNet marketing where the ISP measures bandwidth in terms of how much music or TV episodes people can download. Malone said the company did this simply to give a customer an easier barometer by which to measure their consumption.
When questioned on the music aspect, Malone said the company referred to legal downloads, such as those from iTunes. Bannon countered by saying this could not be the case, since iiNet did not count downloads from iTunes towards a customer’s bandwidth quota.
According to iTWire, a welcome email from iiNet to new customers ended with, “Thanks for choosing iiNet. Happy downloading.”
By drawing attention to the above ponts, AFACT hopes to show that iiNet encouraged infringements, thereby losing its safe habor protection as a carrier.
CW reports that AFACT presented press articles regarding the levels of BitTorrent transfers on the Internet, in the context of actions taken by ISPs in order to limit P2P traffic.
In one article, Malone had said that BitTorrent transfers accounted for around 50% of all Internet traffic and admitted in court that BitTorrent had been used on iiNet’s network since it became available. He went on to agree that while much of this traffic involved the transfer of movies and TV shows, he didn’t feel that “..every young person in Australia is downloading illegally using BitTorrent.”
One exchange apparently raised a laugh in the courtroom when Bannon accused Malone of attracting heavy-usage customers in order to boost iiNet profits.
“I would prefer [those customers] go to someone else and let someone else be sued,” said Malone.
“And you’re happy to take their money in the meantime?” Bannon asked.
“Yes,” he replied.
Yet again, Bannon raised the issue of iiNet’s failure to forward AFACT copyright infringement allegations to its customers. However, an email presented from the Internet Industry Association’s Peter Coroneos, indicated that he was concerned that doing so could lead to an assumption that ISPs are responsible for the actions of their customers.
In the email exchange with Malone, Coroneos said it would be preferable and advantageous for all involved if the content owners could provide some legal alternatives.
After Bannon showed the court documentation showing policies in place at rival ISPs to deal with allegations of copyright infringement, Malone again confirmed that iiNet has no formal policy on how to deal with these type of allegations, noting that the company had yet to be presented with evidence of what he described as a “repeat infringer”.
Earlier in the case, Malone had defined a repeat infringer as one who had been proven as such by a court, but Bannon mocked Malone, asking if the iiNet CEO had just heard what he’d said and would he like to think about the question again for a moment.
Malone said he didn’t and Bannon accused him of treating the proceedings as a game.
The case continues tomorrow.
Previously: Secret Anti-Piracy Treaty Turns ISPs into Pirates
Next: Pirate Party Gets Second Seat in European Parliament
35 Responses
omg
Fuck Bannon and the morons of AFACT. For a start the fucking copyright morons can’t figure out that uTorrent does NOT equal BitTorrent.
Sadly they have more cash to throw at this small ISP, so I fear hope could be lost anyway or this is just an attempt to keep hammering away at their money so they can appeal and drain more resources from them.
Way to go Malone!!
This is a game after all.
“Earlier in the case, Malone had defined a repeat infringer as one who had been proven as such by a court, but Bannon mocked Malone, asking if the iiNet CEO had just heard what he’d said and would he like to think about the question again for a moment.”
Let’s replace the words ‘repeat infringer’ with murderer, burglar, thief, robber, drug dealer or prostitute, all of which you would be able to sue another for were you to be publicly labled as such without the relevant judicial processes being carried out.
Is this Bannon guy a first year articled clerk or what???
and Bannon accused him of treating the proceedings as a game.Anybody know where we can download this game..
Sounds like this AFAXT lawyer is really trying hard to get any little thing relevant or not turned into assisting infringement. Comparing how many music downloads, movies or tv shows seems to be a great way to tell people how much data they can get. Not everyone knows how much a GB is. Now if the ISP went and said that you could download 50 copyright movies a month, this would be different. Keep gasping for air Bannon….. There obviously is not very much getting to your brain!
It becomes quiet a read…
It might be that half of the traffic is bittorrent, BUT that doesn’t mean it’s all illegal ;)
I get all my linux distros and such using bitorrent, and it’s not illegal.
Umm, I wonder if these guys have heard of indie music and movies and documentary’s that are released for free. Freeware is a huge thing released over BT and of course as no-name said the Linux Distro’s.
Remember Kids, Bittorrent is for devil worshipers so don’t use it unless you want to worship the devil.
Bannon says they don’t count iTunes downloads as bandwidth. What kind of idiot it this guy, and how the fucking hell is this case not thrown out yet?
“But you don’t count iTunes downloads as bandwidth.”
What crack is Bannon on, and why the fucking hell hasn’t this been thrown out of court yet?
Yes this is a game, but its been probably stacked in favour of the corporations. I’m smelling another show trial here.
AFACT barrister Tony Bannon is playing the stupid prat version of a barrister. He does not know anything and is deseratly trying to make iinet look fools but it is not happening that way as it ishim that looks the fool.
Court Order on substaiatied data from a verified source is the only way to go else I could easily ring up an ISP and say IP xxx.xx.xx.xxx has infringed my copyright, delete his account. And all this for a laugh.
@ Gordon Pettey…
iiNet has this thing called ‘The Freezone’. This includes all ABC iView, Xbox Live and iTunes traffic. It means that whatever bandwidth you use from these services does not get subtracted from your available quota. There are also other ‘Free’ downloads – http://freezone.iinet.net.au/ for more.
Hence the argument – how can you say ‘This quota will give you approximately ‘xx’ amounts of songs’ if the legal music downloads don’t count towards your quota?.
iiNet could argue that there are other sources of online music that DO count towards quota usage, e.g. Bigpond Music.( http://bigpondmusic.com/?ref=Net-Head-Music )
I’d just like to say that anyone on iiNet is an utter fool.
iiNet: $49.95 a month, 13 gB, ADSL2+
TPG: $49.99 a month, 100 gB, ADSL2+
http://www.iinet.net.au/broadband/plans.html
http://tpg.com.au/products_services/adsl2plus_pricing.php
On a side note, Bannon just made me lose the Game.
Pirates are jumping ship. The lies of the ISPs are now wreaking havoc. MAFIAA couldn’t do a better job.
never thought all these techies would be such liars. Everybody goes for the big buck so it seems.
How many rubber chickens did Good Game give this game? Someone ask Junglist!!!
So… provide no legal alternatives and then sue when the industry moves forward?
Downloading is not only morally right, its your DUTY to force these idiots into the next century.
Download for your kids future.
I am boycotting Hollywood now by not ever buying any new movies.I can always buy my movies used if I really need one.
And I also do the same for the bigwig music labels and artists.
Fuck You bigwig greedbags.You will piss off enough people and make me happy when more and more jump on gorehounds rantings.
@15
comparing iinet and tpg is almost criminal! I’ve been with both and TPG is one the slowest shittiest ISPs in Australia. it’s only good for downloading, and most of the customers know that. you get what you pay for!
Happy downloading, eh? Come on, that’s what the average user does. He or she uploads or downloads data, and most will be downloading more than uploading. Youtube, radio stations, browsing? It’s all downloading, baby.
only 50% of the traffic is bittorrent? you aussies disappoint me.
btw what is the proportion of pr0n in all traffic?
@20
This is TORRENTfreak, remember to seed what you download ;)
50% i guess im not doing enough must d/l more pr0n to get this ratio up :)
I don’t know about you guys using inet or the tpg but the bandwidth caps seem low. I prefer to get a whatever line @ max it out all day & night on average about 26 days a month to make sure I am getting what I am paying for. I would not buy a high speed internet connection with a connection limit or download limit. What if I wanted to watch iplayer all day & night around my house? With the caps, I would easily not be able to watch my tv. This would also go for if I wanted to watch hulu or whatever other channel I wanted to watch.
best thing is to just close the whole fucking internet down. that way no one will be able to do anything, companies will go to the wall and governments will see how much more money is lost than when the internet was free and open. morons!
so, it’s not right to advertise being with a company gives you high speed downloads, but it’s ok to advertise a movie as being great, when it is actually a load of s**t! usual pot and kettle here. why not close the whole internet, send more companies to the wall and let governments see exactly how much more worse off they are without any internet users than with things how they are now
More then half of the effectively used bandwidth on the connections at work is BT too, but its all legal.
There’s certain data we sync between all branches that way to minimize the impact on the HQ connections.
BT is a very handy technology and I’m starting to think that quite a lot of the BT traffic detected by these copyright idiots is actually legal traffic.
“According to iTWire, a welcome email from iiNet to new customers ended with, “Thanks for choosing iiNet. Happy downloading.””
Downloading may refer to any form of drawing something from the internet: If you are reading my comment, you just downloaded it.
AFACT are twits, and I wish they had thier logo on things they represent purely to avoid them.
Bannon should be ass-raped by a group of crazed aborigines.
THEN EATEN!!
Malone should have said “podcasts” instead of “iTunes”. There are lots of TV shows freely available as podcasts direct from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, etc.
Malone should have said, “use of Bittorrent is not illegal and not all Bittorrent traffic is illegal.” Bank robbers often drive cars and 90% of all highway traffic is cars yet highways and cars are not illegal.
Malone should have said iiNet is a “common carrier” and has no obligation to monitor, investigate or restrict the data on their network. AFACT can get a subpoena just like anybody else.
I’m starting to think iiNet will loose this case. Of course it seems like most of these half-baked cases are so rigged that the legal arguments might not matter anyway.
@ Comment 2 by quantocks
I wouldn’t exactly called iiNet ’small’ – they’re the nation’s third largest ISP
Who’s AFUCT?
Long live iiNET!!
10 references to this post
Responses are closed
All remaining responses will continue to be archived. Use the TorrentFreak forums if you want to discuss something.