AFACT v iiNet: ISP: “We Should Not Be Doing AFACT’s Work”
Written by enigmax on November 06, 2009Day thirteen of the trial between anti-piracy group AFACT and Aussie ISP iiNet. The ISP’s chief regulatory officer recalled difficulty with terms used by AFACT in their infringement notices and reiterated that the ISP would not forward them without a court order. AFACT submitted a draft ISP code of conduct in respect of dealing with malware.
It’s day thirteen 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, day eleven, day twelve.
The case continued Friday in the Federal Court, with iiNet’s chief regulatory officer, Steve Dalby, taking the stand following his first appearance Thursday afternoon.
Yesterday, Dalby recalled having difficulty in understanding some of the terminology utilized by AFACT in the infringement notice spreadsheets it submitted to iiNet.
Dalby told AFACT barrister Tony Bannon that iiNet had told AFACT there was an issue with some items being unclear in the spreadsheets.
“There was no legend associated with this spreadsheet. I had to make an assumption. We asked AFACT for more information,” ITNews quotes Dalby as saying.
Bannon then criticized Dalby for not being specific and expecting AFACT to guess at which terms were not understood, but Dalby pointed out that he expected AFACT to contact the ISP for clarification.
Further discussion took place on the issue of IP addresses and how iiNet allocates them to customers. Time and again, Dalby explained that IP addresses are allocated to a customer account and they do not necessarily represent any particular computer that the customer may use.
In what is becoming a recurring theme, today Dalby told the court that iiNet had no intention of forwarding AFACT’s copyright infringement notices to its customers purely on their allegations.
“Our position was that we should not be doing AFACT’s work,” said Dalby. “If we had received authorization by way of court order, that would have changed our position.”
AFACT went on to tender a draft e-security code of practice from the Internet Industry Association (IIA) created earlier this year. It proposes that in future, ISPs could contact, and maybe even disconnect subscribers, who have malware-ridden computers which negatively affect networks. Despite Justice Cowdroy indicating that its relevance was peripheral to the case and wouldn’t but much use when he comes to make his decision, it was allowed.
Dalby said he believed that iiNet had not been involved in the draft and he was personally unfamiliar with it. CW reports that he had been quoted on the issue in the media, but Dalby said that it was a regular occurrence for the press to call him to comment on issues he was not yet familiar with, and in this particular case his comments were “neutral and non-committal”.
In September we reported that Australia’s Internet Industry Association (IIA) felt it had something to offer these court proceedings. IIA applied to be amicus curiae, a ‘friend of the court’, but AFACT objected, insisting the group would not be impartial and would favor iiNet.
The decision on whether this will be allowed or not has been delayed until next week.
In an indication that AFACT still objects to an IIA appearance, Bannon said that “….there’s a conceivable possibility they don’t want to add anything other than to say ‘hear, hear’,” apparently to the amusement of the court.
AFACT barristers are scheduled to make their closing statements next Monday afternoon.
Previously: In Guantanamo Film Premieres on BitTorrent
Next: IFPI Loses: Telenor Will Not Block The Pirate Bay
31 Responses
Leave the internets alone, they is ours
neat
Whats the point. Do they think that iinet will disconnect their customers and lose money and their wim? Losers…
AFACT doing standard operating procedure of the media industry groups when briefs come up.
Opposing every external brief that doesn’t directly support their position.
By the way this goes…. I would bet AFACT is going to win.
Just a prediction. Tho, I *DO HOPE* iiNet wins..
AS for the record… what does the IIA have to do with all this? Associations exists, and you DON’T have to comply what they say, unless you want the “adventages” they give you…. Or is imposed by law, of course.
Great story Enigmax – good to hear what’s going on outside of Europe and the US.
These AFACT bastards are quite persistent, they are fighting a losing battle
I am no longer buying any new movies.
Nor do I buy any corporate music or RIAA KRAP.
For the sake of our readers hear I hope we’re getting the whole story. As it sits right now it looks like AFACT has been embarrassed day after day.
Their allegations simply are “WHY AREN’T YOU DOING WHAT WE TELL YOU TO DO?” while iiNet responds with, take it to court first.
The case has no grounds to begin with and its wasting the tax payer’s money going through this B.S. In my opinion the court has already been purchased, I feel for the customers of iiNet everywhere.
@9 hear hear ;)
As long as the court is impartial i reckon iiNet has won this.
AFACT are sounding more and more like spoiled children.
said before, if AFACT lose, they will just keep going back to court until they do win. then it is not just iiNet and their customers that will be ‘down the pan’ but all isps and all internet customers, everywhere. i also agree that the outcome was decided before the case went to court. what is happening atm is just for show, to make it appear that there is no biosness or forgone conclusions. anything that AFACT dont want included, eg, IIA being a friend of court, because it may be against them, is objected to. then Justice Cowdroy allowing the ‘draft e-security code of practice from the Internet Industry Association’ even tho’ ‘it wouldn’t be much use when he makes his final decision’ when AFACT do want it included. blatant discrimination there, in my opinion!
It proposes that in future, ISPs could contact, and maybe even disconnect subscribers, who have malware-ridden computers which negatively affect networks.
That part is actually good idea. Always look on the… erm it is probably still copyrighted so =)
Disconnecting malware-ridden computers is stupidity. I do support a service that could warn the users of such computers though. Not sure how that would be done =/
From the beginning AFACT’s argument was flawed. So it’d be a surprise if AFACT actually won… I hope for the best in this case.
I think the judge has enough common sense to award this to AFACT.
BTW, I think that guy Bannon would make a great stand-up comedian, he seems to be making alot of jokes.
oops, I meant to award this to iiNet.
I personally believe that iiNet will lose this case, even though from what I’ve read, AFACT haven’t put forward any strong argument at all. Just like in the Pirate Bay trial, the MAFIAA had no evidence apart from screenshots and still they won.
AFACT will win and the judgement will say something like, “iiNet must proactively deter copyright infringement that occurs over their network.” Which is ultimately what all these cases are about. The recording industry compels everyone to battle piracy. There are no safe harbors. Hardware OEMs, software vendors, telecoms, ISPs, hosting facilities, registrars… sue ‘em all!
#16 the problem with TPB case is that the former site operators treated it as a joke and went to court unprepared to lose
on this case it is a bit different iiNet is saying what TPB guys should have said is prove it is illegal without a doubt and we will try and help
i life in New Zealand and haven’t heard anything of this case from any of our local or national news sources seems kinda odd since our countries are like brothers
I live in Perth and have yet to read a newspaper article or see any reference on tv.Could it be that the media moguls who run these two areas have decided to keep information from the general public?To assist their buddies in the U.S.A.(I sound a bit Michael Moore don`t I????)
lol ? austrians biggest provider ( telekom austria ) disconnects malware infected people .. they do this for like 4 years ?
@ 9 Capn.
Hey Capn, you didn’t come back to me on the other thread. Do you have a myspace or band website?
they havent gone after helstra sorry telstra or optarse sorry optus .now that would be funny to see the court filled with millionare lawers who would win they both could bribe the judges lol
No Justice no peace.
“It proposes that in future, ISPs could contact, and maybe even disconnect subscribers, who have malware-ridden computers which negatively affect networks.”
I have had 2 isp’s try to say that I had malware installed. They advised me to use a program called malwarebytes anti-malware and as I was already aware my pc was not malware/virus ridden. Test came back all clean.
The thing about this is that my isp was trying to say that I must have some virus/malware/botnet or something on my pc bc I use alot of bandwidth. I told them that I use bitorrent & asked them if they ever used it. The it guy said oh yeah, I use it sometimes myself. I told them that thats the only reason why I wanted the internet and signed up for an isp. Before switching providers (I moved), I had to explain to my first isp what edonkey was & I gave them the info plain as day as to what it was & the references to it. They said that they don’t have a problem with me running the app but for simplicity sake I just asked about bitorrent since I figured someone there used it with the second isp.
Both said that they don’t see a problem with me running the applications & that I use up a lot of bandwidth but they don’t see it to be a problem. They just assumed I had some malware/vir/ or some other crap on my pc since I was using a lot of bw.
They were both basically small isp’s who is not used to customers using alot when they pay for alot. Since most of the area that the isp provides service to is rual, most rual people here don’t really know how to use the internet & most only check their email. They are not used to having video flowing through their pipes.
I am switching isp’s soon again since this isp will only give me 768 unlimited and the new isp in town will give me 8-12 mb unlimited.
Grandma can stick to her slow 768 as she’s already retired while the others have their faster service.
@20
Ummm… Austria is a country in Europe. AustrALia is a country in the southern hemisphere. They are, like, different, k?
In Australia too, we’ve not really had anything about this in our local news, though allot of online news publications are following it.
It’s not the ISP’s job to enforce the law, that simple.
#11 wf
He makes a scary point. If ALL companies whose products could be used for pirating were forced to full disclosure and proactive prevention of sharing, then it would be very hard to circumvent!
Particularly if privacy protecting measures were banned or classed as proof of guilt.
Hopefully the legal system will not allow for that though.
@ 18 Nov 06, 2009 at 23:16 by JohnDoe
“on this case it is a bit different iiNet is saying what TPB guys should have said is prove it is illegal without a doubt and we will try and help”
no, what their saying is irrespective of the legality of it, it’s not their responsibility to police the traffic content on their network, nor should they be expect to pay for it to protect another companies business on unfounded allegations
“It’s not the ISP’s job to enforce the law, that simple.”
Unless ordered to by the court, which is iiNet’s whole defense pretty much. Personally I think they took the correct approach by demanding more than flimsy allegations, especially where disconnections may be concerned. If someone is breaking the law, then it should fall under the purview of those properly trained, whose job it is to both investigate and enforce the law.
I’ve been following this case from the beginning and I too believe that if Justice Cowdroy is unbiased and neutral, AFACT will in all likelihood lose. Besides being a tad overly stubborn, Bannon has also come across as a bit of a dimwit as well. His personality quirks may have actually done more to hurt the position he represents than his failure to prove any of the arguments he’s presented.
AFACT should start their own ISP using their proposed guidelines and just see how well they do… f@#$ faces
if Afact wins this Australia’s internet is going to be a quiet place
they’ll have everyone disconnected with in a month just because they say so and ip address is no guarantee that is that computer all the time especially when you’ve seen ip cloning done and i thought that was just theory until i saw it done.
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