AFACT v iiNet – The BitTorrent Battle Begins
Written by enigmax on October 06, 2009Today marked the start of the civil action between several film and TV studios against Aussie ISP iiNet. The studios, under the umbrella of AFACT, asserted in court that iiNet did nothing to stop its customers sharing copyright media via BitTorrent. The ISP will essentially refute the claim, and will utilize a multi-layered defense.
Perth-based iiNet, one of Australia’s largest ISPs, faced the beginning of its battle against several film and movie studios in Sydney’s Federal Court this morning, Justice Cowdroy residing.
The studios – Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Disney Enterprises, Inc. and the Seven Network (all under the umbrella of AFACT) – claim that iiNet knew about the copyright infringements of its subscribers, yet did nothing about them.
The case, officially known as Roadshow Films Pty Ltd ACN 100 746 870 & Ors v iiNet Ltd ACN 068 628 937, is particularly serious, since its outcome could determine if ISPs can be held liable for the infringing actions of its customers.
Earlier, AFACT investigators claimed to have recorded around 100,000 copyright infringements carried out by iiNet’s customers using BitTorrent.
For the benefit of the court proceedings, AFACT presented just under 30,000 sample infringements covering 86 copyright works, including two Batman movies, Spiderman 3, Happy Feet, Pirates of the Caribbean and TV shows The Simpsons, Family Guy, Bones and Heroes.
The Angelina Jolie movie Wanted was the title claimed to be most infringed by iiNet’s subscribers, with Will Smith’s Hancock coming in second place. Both clocked up more than 1,000 instances of alleged infringement.
“By making those films available in those 29,914 instances, iiNet customers invited any and every user of the freely available BitTorrent software program to download any and every part of those infringing copies,” said an AFACT lawyer. He then went on to speculate that the 29,914 figure would have to be multiplied many times to get the overall picture of the making available carried out by iiNet’s customers.
AFACT claimed that it had sent information about these infringements to the ISP and demanded that iiNet disconnect the culprits, but the ISP did nothing.
AFACT barrister Tony Bannon also said that iiNet failed to enforce its own user agreement, which includes a clause prohibiting its users from using the service for illegal activities.
Bannon went on to argue that iiNet benefits from piracy since illegal downloaders use a lot of bandwidth and the more they use, the more the ISP makes. He said that disconnecting them would mean that iiNet would lose a customer, something the ISP wishes to avoid, hence the lack of action.
It’s always been somewhat of a mystery why AFACT chose to single out iiNet for legal action, particularly since all other ISPs in Australia have been operating on a similar basis. However, when iiNet made an earlier request to include as evidence how other ISPs responded to AFACT complaints, it was denied.
However, after Bannon gave a video presentation of AFACT’s investigator downloading Batman Begins using BitTorrent, Justice Cowdroy then asked if he could be shown other ISPs said to be facilitating file-sharing.
“Can you show me, Mr Bannon, how many other internet providers are providing the same sorts of information? What other ones right now are doing this?” he said, noting that that iiNet had appeared just four times.
Bannon could not recall the names of the other ISPs and the judge indicated he would be keen to see a live BitTorrent demonstration, rather than just a recorded demo.
The case continues. The defense will present its case later this week.
Previously: BREIN Disconnects The Pirate Bay, For Now
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76 Responses
This should be interesting.
Pointless battle. I’m VPNing from Australia through a european server with Protowall as a backup.
Culture and technology make this a vacuous exercise.
It’s funny how someone started to use the word *culture* and connected it with technology without any context.
It’s a culture to pirate material? :]
If the ISP loose then internet in Australia dies right?
I mean there is no way anyone is going to risk even being a ISP in todays copyright jungle if they get blamed for what their users do..
The Dike has become a sieve. This does nothing to resolve any root causes.
If ISP’s are told to prevent people downloading from bittorent sites as what they download could be illegal, then then ALL isp’s should block anyone purchasing music/movies/tv from itunes “or any other music supplier” as the files could be used illegally.
When the Music/movie/tv industry have no internet revenue they will soon beg, and possibly pay isp’s to share there product.
If inet don’t win, this case could have legal ramification’s that could close down all isp’s in Australia.
This would make all businesses responsible for how there product is used online, So if Google allowed there search engine to be used to get illegal content they could end up in court.
Why don’t the Courts in Australia make it easy on themselves and just ban the use of computers, or any device with access to the internet, in Australia.
“It’s a culture to pirate material?”
Yes. Why?
no money in exchange for services – this is like sueing the street for having hookers on it.
This will not stick, they need to attack the providers if they have a chance at all.
The network is not an enforcement agency. Just like caltrans will never give you a ticket for speeding.
Surely, how an ISP chooses to enforce or overlook clauses within the customer contract is the ISP’s decision?
What we have here is a third party (AFACT) trying to enforce the contents of a contract to which it has no connection.
The whole point of “you agree not to do anything naughty” clauses is to protect the ISP from blame. AFACT is now switching this around to say it now makes the ISP responsible for it clients actions.
If AFACT were so concerned they would go after the actual filesharers. But they won’t because a sharer is too small to be cost effective. Instead they are trying to shift responsibility to the ISP’s. AFACT’s dream it to have the ISP’s do their dirty work and completely bypass the court system whenever they alledge somebody has infringed copyright. Of course, it goes without saying they smaller lobby groups or individuals won’t be able to use the ISP’s for the same purpose.
I bet that shit for brains Conroy would like to see iinet loose the battle. I honestly see it going bad for iinet, there is too much under the desk payment going on in these copyright cases.
@prodigydancer,
HEHE, laughed… thanks!
Good luck…
if iiNet wins, it will make no difference. they will be taken to court again at a later date under appeal. AFACT will keep on until they get what they want, greasing however many number of palms that are needed on the way to achieve their ends. once the internet has either died or been completely taken over by the various industries then the court cases will stop. the number of companies that cease to exist because of it is irrelevant to them.
what is rely annoying is, if the industries had been able to ‘aquire’ bittorrent from the beginning and used it to make money, there would have been none of this sort of thing going on. it is pure jealousy that the protocol, like the internet, is free for everyone! if it transpires that the industries win, then there will be no need for fast broadband. checking e-mail and booking holidays dont need it. isps’ will lose money and eventually, customers, because it will not be worth while operating broadband. they will then go to the wall.
if they would only see the potential to make money themselves from the internet, instead of killing it, all this would be unnecessary! they have gotten too big, too powerful and too greedy but like the dinosaurs, will end up killing themselves off. what a shame. let the stupidity continue!
This is big news in Australia – it has been on the radio all day.
Iinet reply was this is crazy it is like Australia Post getting sued for someone sending drugs in the mail!
Really hope this doesn’t turn bad..
No matter what they do to stop piracy, pirates remain 5 steps ahead. They’re getting nowhere unless they can somehow monitor all encrypted data as well as all as all VPNs.
Wow, I am an IINET customer, and most of my internet traffic is P2P file sharing . . .
Isn’t it prohibited by law to gather personal data to anyone , except police(etc.)?
I would propose the following experiment for the benefit of the judge, the media, and everyone taking part in this:
1. Get the larger Australian ISP’s together, as this needs to be a group effort to show the consequences of this trial (if it sets precedent and eventually becomes law).
2. Type “filetype:torrent” in google and ban all the domains that pop up.
3. Ban all the major search engines, as they are used for finding sites with, and are directly linking to “copyright infringing content”.
4. Do this for 5 days, or until people take to the streets. Then estimate economic losses of this move across Australia.
5. The choice falls to to options – keeping the internet free, or policing it all the time. I think this experiment would show that the latter is a far more expensive and greater impacting course of action.
After all, if ISPs are deemed to be responsible for their clients’ actions, then indeed they would have to do the above scenario for real, so as not to be liable (well, banning search engines is a bit much, but after all they find infringing content, don’t they?).
Really I think this is all a bit over bored
http://www.prefixmag.com/news/seven-crimes-that-will-get-you-a-smaller-fine-than/32033/
Wonder if this is part of “The New World Order”, heads of state keep babbling about.
All governments including those called democratic want to control us.
We are their bread and butter and they want us under lock and key.
I for one quit buying movies and music years ago for the usual reasons, crappy product and excessive prices. Now, however I am a proud pirate solely because of the MIFIAA tactics being used against us. Anything I can do to help hand the entertainment industry their ass is my pleasure. Don’t care if it is currently considered illegal by the MIFIAA who have drafted their own laws through lobbying and bribery, as they are already involved in the biggest shakedown of the global community in history. We can all do something, find it and FIGHT!
The studios – Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Disney Enterprises, Inc. and the Seven Network (all under the umbrella of AFACT)
I AM BOYCOTTTING HOLLYWOOD !!!!
Buy your movies used not new anymore.Let us all show these asshole greedy media companies we are sick of their lying BS
Oh and here is a disaster plan in case iiNet actually loses. They make a sister company – it “leases” the infrastructure of iiNet for its own clients (IP address space split in two between the two companies). If someone gets caught downloading a torrent, iiNet disconnects him, and iiNet2 (or whatever) immediately offer him/her a new contract, without the hassle of actually changing providers (same infrastructure, different companies).
Rinse, repeat… iiNet doesn’t lose customers, though customers ARE being disconnected with compliance to the law :))
“[T]he judge indicated he would be keen to see a live BitTorrent demonstration, rather than just a recorded demo.”
Even the judge wants to learn how to save a few bucks.
BitTorrent is on it’s last leg, I hope there will be a more secure replacement for it soon. I’m using VPN as well, but I know even that is not a long term solution.
ROTFL, let the battle begin! Lets get ready to rrrruuuummmbbblllee! LOL
RT
http://www.complete-privacy.net.tc
@x3dt:
Complete genius! First of all, your idea of having all the ISPs in Australia to get together and block/ban all those domains that link to/have filetype:torrent is completely genius! And then the idea of the split iiNet ISP setup just made me giggle like a little girl!
Seriously, I think that first idea has some credence. That would definitely make people think; and it would definitely make people realize what a silly idea ‘policing’ the internet is…
I really hope that iiNet win their case, although AFACT will blatantly appeal the decision if iiNet win, but it’d still be a knock to their confidence…
Go iiNet!! All Australians are right behind you
Teach AFART and the Industry a lesson and end their bullying tactics
TPB Saga: Maybe TPB can bunk up with Mininova lol xD
What crazyness this is, What do they really hope to achieve trying punish an isp.
It is about time the entertainment companies realized that trying to stop so call pirates is never going to happen as the more you try to stop us the stronger we get and the further underground we will go. They should instead be making more of an intensive for people to pay for the product that they produce with lower prices, better content and more.
Good look iinet, in my opinion the case should be thrown out
Bunch of idiots for not sending cease and desist letters
@24
+1
lets all relax, p2p will never die, the horse has bolted.
Where there is demand there will always be supply, where there is a will there is always way.
GO THE HYDRA !!!
Burn Hollywood Burn!!!!!!!!
Every. Single. Person on this comment section should take the time to email AFACT and voice their opinion in a CIVIL manner. I already have.
Show them that the paying customers are the ones they’re upsetting with their ridiculous charges.
DDos 2 AFACT ;))
afact, so that’s that like atheist and agnostic then, meaning ‘no facts’ interesting choice of name.
definitely going to be following this closely. It’s ridiculous, plain and simple. It’s a shame that money has so much power in this corporate world.
Who really gives 2 sh1ts and a f#ck about Australia or any of their sh1tty ISP’s? NOBODY, that’s who. Maybe their disease ridden gonorrhea infested STD spreading nation will be shut off from the rest of the world like it should be.
This site is becoming a JOKE. If you want real articles, come to http://extratorrent.com/articles/
The dumbest case yet. If the isp looses and has to accept responsibility for its users use, where will it end?
Imagine a terrorist uses his email account to plot with other terrorists resulting in an attack and loss of life. Will the families be able to sue the ISP for being an accomplice to a terrorist attack?
If a user lies on a credit card or mortgage application completed online, will the ISP then be held accountable by the finance company for resulting financial losses?
Can you imagine the potential liable and defamation cases of emails bounced around on the ISPs network?
This would make being an ISP in Australia impossible, the internet would basically cease down there, nobody is going to be an ISP and accept responsibility for the nations indisgressions.
to 39
You are a joke. Get out and stop advertising in a “joke site”.
ISPs have a duty to uphold the law. Whether that means sending notices or blocking torrent sites all together, an “oh well, it’s just the internet attitude” really doesn’t cut it here. I realize that no one likes to be told how they can use the internet and believe me, I would never suggest that an ISP tell it’s custemors how many times they can visit facebook or whether they can use paypall or not. THAT would be wrong. But when you live in a society, freedom has to be weighed against the greater good.. and when people are using their connections to avoid paying people for their work, ISPs should not just turn the other way.
For example, society doesn’t tell you what kind of car you can drive or when you can shop, but it does tell you that you can’t steal money from a store or draw graffiti on walls.
Hey.. you dumbasses… VPNs go through Internet! Therefore, everything going out from your computer, even if it is going through the VPN, goes through your ISP, therefore can be Read and Traced :P
You don’t have a “direct” connection with the other side, you just make it “private”..
About encryptation and secure programs: doesn’t matter what you do, the goverment will end up decrypting it, if they want to. Therefore, don’t spend money with it.
About the case: I hope what needs to happen to have a Free Internet happens.
The big problems wont be for Auzzie land if they lose. It will be for everyone and their ISP.
AFACT will lose , I am 100% sure about that.
@41
I could recommend a good shrink – you are obviously delusional!
Before posting such shit – please do some research about your claims!
Ready to watch the battle !
http://hackmeout.blogspot.com
@41
As a favor to *YOUR* ISP it would be a good idea to make your habits as private as possible…
VPN’s. Proxies. Protowall, Peerblock, PeerGuardian..etc.. Whatever it takes.. you arent only doing yourself a favor but you are helping take the heat off of your provider as well…
Think about it…
does this at all sound like suing the people building roads for allowing people to cause fatal crashes?
As always they sue without proper knowledge and consistent arguments. If Australian judicial system is sane, iiNet will be victorious. If Australian judicial system is awesome then any user that might be directly sued will also be victorious since AFACT has no proof the content was not bought after the download.
@ AFACT (and MAFIAA merry friends all over the world): I’m gonna repeat myself once again. Don’t sue, check if the person buys any content and check why he/she didn’t buy the rest. Basic marketing principles you are choosing to ignore.
Woot for the judge, wanting an actual stage performance… For once it looks like a judge might be doing his job instead of going, piracy = bad? AMIRITE?
Aside from direct action, the best we can do is keep on seeding.
Keep on seeding, dudes!
The music and movies parasites never start a trial without making sure everything has been rigged. The judges are paid the witnesses are paid and the jurors are paid too.
The only way to win is to do the same thing as they do and offer more money to the judges, jurors and witness.
Basically justice is dead, there is no law, we can do anything we want so I am fetching my guns.
The music/movie people make me sick- trying to punish an innocent ISP like this?! You’ll notice how they always go after the people who can’t defend themselves well, as opposed to, say, Google, which has more enough money to buy and sell several thousand judges and jurors…
It’s time for you to put out a call for Ned Kelly
I can see this being another show trial for the corporations. The decision has been made behind the close doors well before the start of the case. I bet the defense will make a good case but the corporations will win because they bought off everyone.
“By making those films available in those 29,914 instances, iiNet customers invited any and every user of the freely available BitTorrent software program to download any and every part of those infringing copies,”
Is that their argument? ISP’s are not making anything available. They just provide a service that connects people to the internet. What is on the internet an ISP has no control over.
MAFIA
M usic
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“illegal downloaders use a lot of bandwidth and the more they use, the more the ISP makes. ”
I don’t think that statement makes sense?
The fact this court case has even got this far is a demonstration of how corrupt the system has become. What’s next, taking Antec court for “facilitating copyright infringement” for powering the motherboards?
or Logitech? Because the mouse is responsible too you know (for clicking).
This is why i use VPN for downloads too – we can’t even trust our own laws to be upheld, let alone other countries. I watched all the corruption and case-fixing in the US and Sweden thought “fuck thats bad” but i never imagined it would spread to Australia.
For fuck sake AFACT you greedy corrupt piece of shit. Doesn’t your cohort have enough money already? Don’t try to sell us some sob story about how artists are losing money because they are still waiting for their hand-outs from the last round of court cases.
Police don’t arrest and charge ‘possessers’ of drugs, they let them go and go after the dealers who profit from it. The same should apply here – go after the people who make money from infringement (the real criminals), not the little fish.
http://tinyurl.com/handyguide
MAFIAA
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A MERICA
i went skiing in Austria. the mountains are great and the apres ski is wonderbar. i had bratworst and sauerkraut and drank lots of german beer
Sounds like just another reason to go to McDonald’s and use their WiFi to download…
I think the music companies should sue the wire-making companies! If it weren’t for those evil companies making their wires then people wouldn’t be able to share files in the first place!
Next thing you know, they going to remove blue tooth from phones lol
“Bannon went on to argue that iiNet benefits from piracy since illegal downloaders use a lot of bandwidth and the more they use, the more the ISP makes.”
Ahh, I understand. The same way that DVD-R manufacturers benefit from piracy in that pirates do a lot of DVD burning to make illegal copies of music and movies, right? The more movies and albums get burned, the more the DVD-R manufacturers make.
But wait… don’t Sony make DVD-Rs?
Maybe they can sue themselves. Just a thought.
You wouldnt sue a street for having hookers…
You wouldnt sue road builders for fatal car crashes…
So why would you sue an ISP for piracy?
Sueing ISPs for piracy is a crime
That cunt Conroy is pushing for this !! – Next it will be car manufacturers being sued when the product runs over somebody – fuckin idiots – better stop making blank DVDs
It is culture to pirate. The reasons have been said many times before;
-dvd movies, games etc overpriced
-distribution around world too slow
-all the other reasons stated elsewhere
@57 – Dan
It does make sense, since as far as I know most ISPs in Australia actually charge on bandwidth(i.e. – you have 15, 50, 200 GB monthly packages; I don’t know the actual numbers). So if most people stop p2p-ing, they have no use for those 200GB and will revert back to a very basic (and inexpensive) package.
@ x3dt
I can tell you now, australia has no such thing as a 200 GB plan, from any ISP. We pay an obscene amount for our data, about $100 for between 25 to 80 GB per month, depending on the ISP. The highest data allowance would be around the 120 GB mark and the speeds are inferior to the majority of other developed nations.
Think of the children sue the record industry for nurturing criminal behavior in our children after all they make the product that starts the criminal behavior in the first place don’t they.
Music should be outlawed as drugs are.
Where would it end, if ISPs were found to be responsible for the actions of their customers? If someone were to send a private email that contained incriminating data, would the ISP then be responsible for not doing anything about it? It follows the same logic as this case.
This is like.. if you went to hospital for an operation, and the hospital said you couldn’t have a room because all their rooms were booked, that you then attempted to sue one of the other patients, because they knew that someone else could use the room, regardless of if they needed it for their own operation.
This is going to end badly for everyone, regardless of the outcome.
This is a bit like suing alcohol breweries for drink driving.
@ Bassius
Well, I said that I didn’t know the actual numbers… But still $100 is obscenely expensive for that kind of traffic. The trouble with developed countries (case in point – Australia, US, the UK, etc.) is that the infrastructure was built early when these kind of technologies were very expensive, so capital cost is very high and ROI very low. Now, what are labeled “developing” countries started building the infrastructure much later with cheaper, faster, and more reliable technology. For example where I live we pay about AU$25 for a 50 mbit (~6 MB/s) line with unlimited traffic. The optical infrastructure (yes, optical, not copper) country-wide is maybe 10-12 years old, so you can imagine it was much cheaper to build than 30-40 years ago, hence higher speeds at lower price is possible.
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