As ISPs Mull Pact To Fight AFACT, Pirate Party Condemns ‘Extortion’

enigmax
July 13, 2011
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AFACT,
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Following an ultimatum set by AFACT, Australian ISPs have until the close of business today to comply with veiled threats from the big Hollywood studios to help them tackle online piracy, or else. As one ISP confirms it won’t respond to threats, another is trying to form a coalition to fend off the movie companies. Pirate Party Australia describes the moves by Hollywood as “extortion”.

To many in the business world, using strong-arm tactics against companies whose help you need to achieve your aims is something to be avoided. It creates bad feeling and can be somewhat counter-productive. Issuing threats to potential business partners is hardly an indication that those relationships are going the right way.

Nevertheless, this is the position Australia’s ISPs find themselves in today. They have a written ultimatum from the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft, the anti-piracy group financed by the big Hollywood studios. Received last week, the memo gives the ISPs until close of business today to give their commitment to entering into talks to hinder online file-sharing – or suffer the consequences.

This aggressive approach has already “rubbed up” Exetel boss John Linton “the wrong way”, as Aussies might put it. He has declared that he won’t be responding to AFACT’s threats. Now, according to a new report and contrary to the result hoped for by AFACT, another ISP is trying to form a coalition with its rivals to fend off Hollywood’s demands.

A Telstra spokeswoman quoted by The Australian has confirmed that the ISP is liaising with the Communications Alliance to develop an industry-wide response to AFACT.

“Telstra remains open to discussing how we might assist copyright holders to enforce their private property rights. Given this is an industrywide issue Telstra has encouraged discussions to be facilitated by the Communications Alliance,” she said.

The Communications Alliance was set up to provide a unified voice for the Australian telecommunications industry, offer contributions to policy development and ensure the protection of consumer interests. A spokesperson confirmed that the organization is working with the ISPs to find “an industry-led solution” to online copyright issues.

Rather than adopt ISP suggestions that are unlikely to go far enough for Hollywood, AFACT appears to prefer a fairly aggressive approach to infringement touted by Judge Arthur Emmett during the iiNet trial.

Throwing their 3-cornered hats into the mix, Pirate Party Australia have rejected not only Emmett’s suggestions, but also the manner in which AFACT have approached the ISPs.

“Pirate Party Australia is opposed to the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft’s (AFACT) latest offensive against Australian internet users,” the party said in a statement.

“AFACT’s alleged extreme demands would require ISPs to notify their customers of infringements as alleged by AFACT and disconnect them if they do not respond within 7 days.

“These veiled threats are nothing more than intimidation tactics that once again clearly display the extent that Big Media will go to in their failing attempts to protect their flawed business models. Extortion is a new low even for AFACT,” says Acting Secretary, Brendan Molloy.

“It is completely inappropriate to have closed-room discussions even before the iiNet court case has concluded, and even more inappropriate to make veiled threats to begin yet another court case for not attending these ‘voluntary talks’.”

The party concludes by urging ISPs to unite against AFACT and refuse to become their copyright enforcement officers.

Involving the Communications Alliance in AFACT discussions would seem to be a sensible move by the ISPs. In the light of this development it remains to be seen whether AFACT still feels inclined to go ahead with whatever action lies behind today’s deadline.

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Alex

What I’m wondering is what they meant by “or else”…
- http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja
  
  Empty threat?
  - Anon
    
    I hope it`s not an empty threat. I hope they do something totally ludicrous. If they do, it will be much easier to amass active opposition and defeat them.
  - Momo
    
    Syntax error.
- omg
  
  nothing … extortion is not legal even for Hollywood :) guess they will have to either buy isp or start some …. else gtfo :)
  - Scary Devil Monastery
    
    Warner did just that – start/buy an ISP if you recall. However, said ISP, when hit with requests to cough up ip adresses, immediately said “Certainly, it will cost you this much per adress” which made the MPAA go “WTF?? Aren’t you guys working WITH us on this? We can’t afford this!”
    
    Whereupon the Warner-owned ISP unperturbed went: “That’s one thing, but this is business and we don’t believe in giving things away for free”.
    
    Ironical. One of the few times where two wrongs made a right.
- BushObama
  
  or else they will sanction third world australia
- Cordelia
  
  With ISPs like this Australia must be a terrorist country on the AXIS OF EVIL!!
  Invade, invade, invade!!!
- Strobble
  
  or else they will tell their mommy’s
What the hell is a carbon tax?

This is a positive step for ISP’s however Telstra is not in the clear. They have already established an involuntary filter on clients without their consent and with the blessing of the Internet Industry Association. The whirlpool forums suggest that many people are expressing a desire to move to other ISPs such as TPG and Internode which don’t do AFACT’s bidding nor filter their customer’s internet. On a side note AFACT tried to score a low pt by suggesting that Pirate Party Australia have their facts wrong (they actually did in terms of the response period) but conceptually the Pirate Party is right. AFACT have always acted like a bunch of bullies and the day these low-lives get hacked and their lies (hopefully lives) exposed will be a great day for democracy.
- Anonymous
  
  “AFACT have always acted like a bunch of bullies and the day these low-lives get hacked and their lies (hopefully lives) exposed will be a great day for democracy. ”
  
  Translation: #Antisec, over to you.
- Strobble
  
  Eventually their will be a world tax, they will tax you to live on the planet because you are a carbon based life-form. And if you have any pets, they have to pay too.
Eugene

So they shoot for harsh penalties and will probably “settle” for something more “appropriate”. Maybe they should have suggested pirates be keel-hauled?
Anonymous

Should be interesting to see how that all turns out. Wow.

http://www.total-privacy.ua.tc
- abvc
  
  wow my ass
  flagged!
Anon

Calling it “extortion” is not going to help their political case. Throwing around baseless accusations will not hold them in good stead, and is why media organisations in Australia do not take them seriously.

There are better ways to make your point. TF articulates well. PPAU does not….
- http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja
  
  Well, if I tell you to do something or else (implying I may take legal and even financial actions against you), what is it called then?
  - Anon
    
    It may be a threat – it doesn’t make it extortion.
    
    Extortion is a criminal act. If they can prove criminality – by all means call it that – but if they can’t – they should choose their words more carefully.
    
    The Pirate Party in AU – as someone else has already commented, are a joke. Failed to register the party. They are more akin to a child’s party with balloons and clowns.
    
    For a group who want political traction – being extremist will not help them.
    - Chillienet
      
      http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/extort
      extort
      –verb (used with object)
      1.
      Law .
      a.
      to wrest or wring (money, information, etc.) from a person by violence, intimidation, or abuse of authority;
      
      AFACT want details behind IP addresses (information,) they try to obtain it by intimidation (“do this or else…”) Sounds like the dictionary definition of extort to me.
    - http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja
      
      The fact that they failed to register means nothing, many countries are resistant and/or restrictive due to the very nature of the pirate movement around the world. And many Pirate Parties are still growing and learning. And they are not extremist, as Chillienet pointed out with the dictionary it’s clearly a case of extortion from AFACT to have their ways.
      
      Legally speaking it might not be extortion but unless the dictionary is wrong we can call AFACT’s actions extortion.
      
      Next: MAFIAA starts defamatory campaigns against the dictionary because it doesn’t suit their interests.
      
      lol, just lol. I hope AFACT gets their extortion put right back up their arses.
    - at least some ISPs have balls
      
      They are not being extremist. Your employers *are* extortionists. Have been called so by politicians before, and not just by Pirate Party members.
      
      Also, the total extremism of your employers, that’s not a problem? Hypocrisy is such a wonderful thing, isn’t it?
    - http://twitter.com/davidcampbell84 David W. Campbell
      
      it is unfortunate we have been able to register yet
    - surrounded by morons
      
      CLEARLY extortion!!! Open a dictionary you mindless schill… and stop defending the enemy… idiot.
- http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
  
  SHILL! Dirty dirty shill!
  
  Seriously Anon… go away. No one buys your BS anymore. I sure as heck do not, my parents (60 years old) do not, and neither does anyone younger than myself today in my family.
  - Anon
    
    Yes – anybody who posts a comment not in line with your thinking is a pariah. You twat. I didn’t say I disagreed with the Pirate Party policies. I just said they need to represent themselves better.
    
    Perhaps before you so quickly jump the gun, you read the comment first. Oh wait – that would imply you could also comprehend the words.
    
    You should join their party of clowns also.
    - Anonymous
      
      In his defense, you go by the username Anon. There are at least 4 Anons. 2 of which are major shill-types. Say the dumbest things, refuse to prove what they say is correct and then demand proof from anyone who says they’re wrong. So it’s easy to see how he might assume you’re probably one of those guys. Psh. 2 of them tend to even write the same thing (not like what you just wrote, I mean in regards to each other) which makes it seem like they’re the same person. It may have been an error on his part, but as I said, an understandable one.
    - http://twitter.com/davidcampbell84 David W. Campbell
      
      Clowns are welcome to join, however we prefer people who would like to work towards our goals instead of just entertain us with their jovial antics, if you are motivated enough to make a difference, come and visit one of our meetings or jump on IRC and have a chat with our members.
- Anonymous
  
  The Australian Pirate Party are a joke -
  
  They had the internet filter to fight an election over in 2010 and…Forgot to register as a political party.
  
  Epic fail.
  - Anon
    
    All begin is hard, at least they stand for something.
  - http://twitter.com/davidcampbell84 David W. Campbell
    
    They did not forget to register, They handed in the correct forms at the appropriate time and some were “Lost”, we are still fighting that battle, you can fill in the blanks as to who lost them.
    - Anonymous
      
      And the dog ate your fuckin’ homework. Take some responsibility instead of hiding behind conspiracy theories.
      
      If the Australian Sex Party (yeah, they’re real and they kick arse) could register, PPAU could have. It was very poor organisation, not some covert operation by the black hats.
Anon

When ISP’s sold bandwidth for a fixed monthly rate they had less direct liability for what happened on their network. Now many plans are capped, with extra charges for each gigabyte over the monthly cap thereby paying the ISP’s directly for the unlawful traffic and giving them incentive to encourage this traffic to earn higher fees.

With greater earnings and direct fiduciary linkage comes greater responsibility and direct accountability for what they are selling. The internet was never a “dumb pipe” like water or electricity and those who have argued for this have not only been willfully disingenuous, but now we see that argument has actually damaged their case because it was never, ever true. In a responsible marketplace we should ALL have an accountability for the services and products we bring to that market. Common sense. Get over it.
- got teeth?
  
  bite me
- Anon
  
  lol your a funny man how much are you paid to post nonsense the internet is a dumb pipe with only minor modification using open source?
  
  There are so many encryption methods that make pipes literally dumb your crowd is going to suffer soon as you push them all on to it. $10 just now will be $5 when on mass people pay up extra for VPN’s. How you gonna spy then my friend? Then you do have a dumb pipe in all reality. They will scramble those 1′s and 0′s so much you won’t have clue were they are all going. Good luck calling it not a dumb pipe then the ISP’s are bridges they won’t have a clue what is passing by them.
  - Zzzz
    
    Your illogical and desperate thoughts never fail to amuse me.
    - http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
      
      Your illogic at saying that his posts are illogical amuses me. The fact is that he is right: the ONLY thing this is going to do is push for Bittorrent to go totally decentralized AND encrypted.
  - http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja
    
    While your reply is somewhat hard to read I can see your point. My ISP throttles bittorrent traffic. 300k/s downstream if I try to download via bt. However, if I encrypt the connection it goes at full 1,2Mb/s. If they can’t see what is going through the pipe, how will they do any type of censoring? https searches on Google, any1?
    
    Aaah, how MAFIAA is digging their own grave by encouraging the internetz to go further anonymous ;)
- http://teenygozer.livejournal.com/ Teenygozer
  
  The telephone is used to commit all sorts of crime! Threats, extortion, scams… but we can fix this! Let’s make the phone companies responsible for what goes on in a phone call–it makes sense, it’s *their* phone line being used for criminal purposes. All the phone companies have to do is monitor every call, to make sure nothing hinky or illegal is being said. If someone keeps getting caught using their phone to threaten someone or for phone scams, their carrier can cut them off. The carrier should have accountability for what their product is being used for, right?
  - http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja
    
    “If someone keeps getting caught using their phone to threaten someone or for phone scams, their carrier can cut them off.” Because that will solve the problem and the threatening guy will not go to the victims place and keep threatening. Oh, let’s not forget the post offices.
    
    Rly?
    - Death
      
      Why did you attempt to ridicule the general point of that example through technicalities? When people make comparisons of things they feel are wrong, they tend to not think of the technicalities of their example; the only part that matters is allowing others to see what they see is wrong with the topic they are satirizing.
    - http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja
      
      Why did I SUCCEEDED in ridiculing the general point? Maybe because it’s not valid? Maybe because the internet case is precisely the same thing regarding that the promoted changes to the law will be a complete failure?
      
      1 – Guy threats whoever repeatedly.
      2- Cut the guy from his phone line.
      3- Guy uses public phones.
      4- Law fails.
      PS: this is socially unacceptable.
      
      Internet:
      
      1- Person downloads infringing stuff.
      2- If person is educated he/she use anonymity services, skip to 5, if not, follow to 3.
      3- Cut person from internet.
      4- Person uses open wifi and innocent gets cut.
      5- Law fails.
      PS: file sharing is socially acceptable depending on location for the majority of the population. Danish study says 70%, developing countries probably excess 90%.
      
      So, yes, your point is invalid and only proves what has been said by educate TF readers, TF and other sites related. And oh wow, Teeny was (probably) being ironic. And while it might seem I didn’t notice that, I pointed exacly why internet censorship and x strikes laws won’t do a thing.
    - http://teenygozer.livejournal.com/ Teenygozer
      
      Wow, you did miss the point:
      
      Internet & Phone:
      
      1. Carrier’s job is to provide a service that can be used for ill or for good by the people it serves, and I’m not arguing about which file-sharing is because that’s not the point I choose to make.
      2. Carrier is suddenly responsible and accountable for the services it brings to the market it serves because, according to the Anon I was replying to, that’s “common sense.”
      3. The only way to be responsible and accountable for the service the carrier provides to the market is by invading the privacy of the people it serves. incidentally, the carrier is expected to take on all additional costs of this task of invading the people it serves’ privacy (which cost it will pass on to the people it serves.)
      4. Common sense is apparently not as common as we’d hoped, because that doesn’t make sense, and Anon is a jerk.
      
      I know not everyone gets sarcasm, but I was being sarcastic to make my point.
    - http://teenygozer.livejournal.com/ Teenygozer
      
      Wow, you did miss the point:
      
      Internet & Phone:
      
      1. Carrier’s job is to provide a service that can be used for ill or for good by the people it serves, and I’m not arguing about which file-sharing is because that’s not the point I choose to make.
      2. Carrier is suddenly responsible and accountable for the services it brings to the market it serves because, according to the Anon I was replying to, that’s “common sense.”
      3. The only way to be responsible and accountable for the service the carrier provides to the market is by invading the privacy of the people it serves. incidentally, the carrier is expected to take on all additional costs of this task of invading the people it serves’ privacy (which cost it will pass on to the people it serves.)
      4. Common sense is apparently not as common as we’d hoped, because that doesn’t make sense, and Anon is a jerk.
      
      I know not everyone gets sarcasm, but I was being sarcastic to make my point.
  - derpa
    
    +1 for truth n lulz… ^^
- puddipuddi
  
  Well, they do take responsibility with water, they can’t just send us poisonous water. When we have a flood around here, we are told to stop drinking immediately because of possible contamination. Are you saying every time an infringement happens, we need to shut down our internet connections? Do you realize how much work it would be to police thousands of connections? And you think that should be put on isp’s?
  
  No, they shouldn’t have to pay to do someone else’s dirty work.
- Devanite
  
  Do not like your own posts please, it gives extremely poor representation to the validity of your subject, out of your entire post one part has merit, as ISP’s charge for this “over the CAP traffic” (din know it was happening down under as well as in Canada (my country) and the US) perhaps these ISP’s should be handing the money directly to the media companies, or at least a percentage of it, then the media companies could at least stop fighting over this instead of trying to control the most chaotic information hurricane this world is likely to see? nah that’d be too easy!
  
  The internet thrives off of the chaos, try to control it, and you will only kill it!
- DocGerbil100
  
  “[...] with extra charges for each gigabyte over the monthly cap thereby paying the ISP’s directly for the unlawful traffic and giving them incentive to encourage this traffic to earn higher fees.”
  
  Hmm. I seem to recall reading a long time ago (little chance of finding a link, sadly), of at least one anti-piracy group claiming that offering unlimited access to a service (might have been talking about ISPs, might have been about filehosts) amounted to a direct encouragement to piracy in and of itself.
  
  If any notable anti-piracy group maintains that position, that would put your argument very much in the area of ‘damned if they do, damned if they don’t’. Regardless of any sentiment for or against piracy, that’s really not a strong place to argue from. :-/
  - Devanite
    
    No but we would win somewhere, either the ISP’s would have to stop the usage based billing or if the ISP’s are going to rip us a new one financially anyway then they should be liable to hand over money to the Copyright Nazis thereby eliminating the need to hunt down filesharers!
- surrounded by morons
  
  Could you be more obvious? And wrong? The answer to both is no.. Sell your propaganda elsewhere.. No one except crooked politicians and corporate buffoons believer your nonsense..
  
  Also, you smell of buttsecks..
John Space

To the trenches, me game soldiers! Remember Gallipoli!
http://www.facebook.com/michael.branchfield Michael Branchfield

IF and that is a big IF the MAFIAA through their Australian branch are strong arming the ISPs I have 2 words that will solve the ISPs’ problems….RICO Laws. They were passed years ago to combat the real mafia but have been expanded (due to some vague wording in the laws) to include any group that makes threats (veiled or otherwise) along with other violations. IT IS TIME TO FIGHT THESE PEOPLE WITH THEIR OWN LAWS.
- SethoftheSea
  
  someone been watching batman
- Anonymous
  
  Sorry to burst ya bubble, Michael.
  
  But US law doesn’t apply in Australia (thank fuck)
  - An Unwashed Heathen
    
    Best tell that to Hollywood’s attack dog AFACT, then. They seem to think it does.
Fix A Conived Threat.

I suggest, that the “Big Brother” FACT, learn that the more they threaten, the more users will attack their strong arm tactics, downloading more than they may have before, just to show they cannot be threatened. Their movies can be stolen, via dvd rentals, where a renter can copy the movie, and pass it on to friends etc., without even using the internet.

Back when records were sold, people were copying the music on tape, even straight off the radio. The same can be done now days, by recording streamed movies, or recording off pay tv channels. The real “pirates” will not have any problem obtaining movies for distribution.

The whole problem, FACT and the MPAA face, is that they are trying to force the population to adhere to their outdated distribution systems, then putting the onus on the ISP, to try and force their subscribers not to download anyting that even SOUNDS like a movie title.

Also, their film trailers, and product, so often are substandard and those that have downloaded it will have deleted the file before watching it all, because, the product is absolute rubbish.

Until the media companies find out what movie watchers want, and prices that are reasonable, this problem will go on ad infinitum.
Pingback: As ISPs Mull Pact To Fight AFACT, Pirate Party Condemns ‘Extortion’ – TorrentFreak | Hotel Safes Now
Anonymous

All they need is…

AFACT in the united view of all Australian ISPs you are hereby informed to FUCK OFF.

Problem solved, lol.
- Guest
  
  All they need is love.
  - Anonymous
    
    If you want to go to bed with someone who brands you a ‘terrorist’ then good luck on that one.
    
    For years I did not believe anyone could be worse than the UK organization FACT but sure enough AFACT win that crown of the biggest turd in the punch bowl.
http://www.facebook.com/jordan.kratz Jordan Kratz

Pirate Party Australia describes the moves by Hollywood as “extortion”.

The war is on against MAFIAA.
Any of their products will not be payed for in my home unless it is a used product.And no RIAA Triator artist will ever be played in my home.Those who sign with them can suck my dog’s ass.
- gae
  
  There are already many possible purchases of media that I decided against based not on the quality of the product, but the attitudes of those who would have proffited from the purchase.
  I would say that I am both a pirate and a customer, but if they keep going on like they do then the customer part may stop entirely.
Anonymous

I find this so disturbing “the big Hollywood”, lmao!! Please save me from laughter. They are desperate their battles are getting tougher, because they are losing. There are way too many people in this world!!! I find it funny one of the Hollywood studios is owned by an Aussie “Rupert Murdoch!!” Keep fighting!!
- http://twitter.com/Dreamreaver Dreamreaver
  
  And promptly fled to the US. You Americans can keep him, we don’t want him.
  - http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja
    
    A country that suits the man huh? Sure the US nowadays fit into the same low as Murdoch.
  - Anonymous
    
    We Americans don’t want him either. As a matter of fact I don’t think anyone wants him! OFF WITH HIS HEAD!! What the fuck you think all Americans like corporate fascist scum ?? People need to wake the fuck up and realize what your country is going through is the same here!! I didn’t ask for obama bin laden, I didn’t ask for tsa, I did ask for the elite scum, I didn’t ask for corporate paid media to give false and fake news!!! I sure hell didn’t ask for censoring my fucking Internet!!!
  - Anonymous
    
    We Americans don’t want him either. As a matter of fact I don’t think anyone wants him! OFF WITH HIS HEAD!! What the fuck you think all Americans like corporate fascist scum ?? People need to wake the fuck up and realize what your country is going through is the same here!! I didn’t ask for obama bin laden, I didn’t ask for tsa, I did ask for the elite scum, I didn’t ask for corporate paid media to give false and fake news!!! I sure hell didn’t ask for censoring my fucking Internet!!!
    - Spock
      
      I could not agree more! Keep fucked up MurDUCK and his son, burn them at the stake, run them out on a rail, whatever else you want…………….but dont send his scanky ass to us, WE DONT WANT HIM! Meanwhile his Brit news empire is toast……….I was LMAO when I heard the fail call !!
    - Anonymous
      
      Music to my ears :)
MC

Looks like iinet won their case i think, so the proper response to AFACT should be ‘come at me bro’
Also, “Throwing their 3-cornered hats into the mix”

Its called a tricorn :)
http://disqus.com/ Rob8urcakes

What’s really needed in this dispute is a time machine. A TARDIS or a USS Enterprise to sling-shot around a Star (other than Lady Gaga, coz she aint heavy enough).

So we send the MAFIAA back 30 years (or 3,000 maybe?) and ask them – given what you know of 21st century technology, how would you want to rip off market songs and movies? Even one’s that aren’t new and have little or no value ffs?

Answer that you copywrong trolls.
- Ryzzo
  
  Aren’t they already 30 years in the past? I thought that’s what started this whole problem in the first place. Damn time traveling bastards!!! LMAO
  - Anonymous
    
    no, they come from 30 years in the past. they travelled forward. unfortunately.
http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell

It’s about time that the proper word for this stuff was used, because it IS extortion. If I was to tell someone to do something/give me money or X would happen (and it was something negative), I would be cooling my heels in jail as the prosecutors filed extortion charges against me.

It should be the same if a corporation/business tries doing that to another corporation/business.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Martin-Garrison/100002171503232 Martin Garrison

Isn’t American television giant Fox the network that televises The Simpsons, the same Fox Television owned by that Australian Murdoch? I absolutely hate The Simpsons. BTW, I’m vacationing in The Land of The Long White Cloud if Australian ISP’s turn in to pussies. See ya wouldn’t wanna be ya.
- Anonymous
  
  Read my post. Yes Rupert Murdoch.
- Anonymous
  
  Read my post. Yes Rupert Murdoch.
anon

Well, Murdock has dropped his bid for BSKYB so maybe things are looking up a little.
- SethoftheSea
  
  Correct me if I am wrong but isn’t BSKYB controlled by his son anyway….
  - anon
    
    He does, but he father owns a 30 some % stake in the company already.
  - anon
    
    He does, but he father owns a 30 some % stake in the company already.
Anonymous

No way really? Major coolness.
total-privacy.ua.tc
- IDIOCRACY
  
  flagged
IDIOCRACY

Somehow it strikes me with a nostalgic feeling reading all the anti-piracy news and more all their proposals to deal with the timeless and un-ban-able fenomenon piracy.
The nostalgic feeling is that of stasi (DDR) / securitate (Romania) / KGB & FSB

It is weird that we (the west) fought a cold war for more than 40 years with the old warchau-pact countries and critisized them on their spying on their own people, denying their human-rights, and now …. heeee look USA and followers (UK / EU) are (beginning to) do the same now. Soon we will start shooting our civilians that try to flee to the free east :D

Who is the biggest hypocrite here??????
- derpa
  
  Dolt…
  
  /facepalm
Mr. Anderson

The MIAA sucks. That’s AFACT. We don’t want no sticking Great Wall of China. Mmmm k?
Gdsgdf Jr. the III

even if hollywood somehow managed to get every piracy website shut down, it won’t stop people from exchanging material between eachother, either through chat clients or in person. this information is to important to our brains; break one connection, and another will form. that is the organic nature of our reality.

LIFE FINDS A WAY, GUYS!! – Dr. Ian Malcolm
some_twat

Silly point but if i was put in a dark room with a sack over my head and told to do a certain thing, you would undoubtedly do it. Thinking therefore, completely out of the box, if you were to remove all things bling from your server this would make you non-liable.

So ISP’s, block HBO, block I-Tunes, block Time Warner. If you block the products from appearing on your servers how can you possibly be held culpable for their unlawful distribution??

Or you could do nothing and bleet!!!
- MD3
  
  Men, this is the comment of the year in my opinion. They should block the bullies AS WELL.
  
  BRILLIANT.
  
  Hats off.
- Anonymous
  
  An interesting idea. I could even see the ISP explaining that to the MPAA/RIAA/etc. “Well, you see, we decided to block access to your sites and iTunes and Netflix and whatnot, because of how it encourages piracy. Think about it. People go and see a partial episode of Weeds on the Showtime website and then think to themselves they’ll just pirate it from a torrent site. So rather than run that risk, we’ve decided to not tempt them. And as such, we’ve block your sites. Same thing for iTunes/Netflix. They might stumble across something there and just out of curiosity see if they can find it illegally online. And if they did, they just might decide never to pay for anything again, so again we’re cutting off the temptation. Sorry, but it’s in YOUR best interest for us to do this. We’re only looking our for you. We know how piracy has affected your business models and we wanted to do our part to stem it entirely from the internet.”
Anonymous

You aussies will accept that? Will you all be owned by the bullies?
http://fuzzytutorials.com Richard Gailey

“the memo gives the ISPs until close of business today to give their commitment to entering into talks to hinder online file-sharing – or suffer the consequences.”

Or what exactly? What could they actually do? Block the ISP’s users from accessing certain on-line content?

A] Easily gotten around
B] They would actually loose money
C] Most of it is crap anyway, and if they want it, trust me they’ll get it.

So again, what can they do.
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Aussie

@Richard Gailey – what can they do? Well, for starters, they can sue, just like they did with iiNet. This “attempt” at collaboration can then be used as evidence that they “tried” to come to a “reasonable” solution, and the ISP’s “refused to co-operate”… Tie that in with a few of hte more ambigous (and minor) aspects of the last iiNet appeal, and they might just get something out of it.

It’s disgusting, but not unexpected. The whole timing of this is the key part though. Rather than let the courtcase run to its conclusion, they are baiting the trap so this can be used as evidence.

Mark my words – when AFACT and iiNet go back to the courts at the end of the year (I think), this “genuine attempt at conciliation” will rear its ugly head.

And hopefully blow up in their faces like every other “genuine attempt” they’ve tried to force on people so far.

The cynic in me thinks this is purely for that purpose, nothing more. Its merely an evidence plant to try and con the judges into believing they have the moral high ground on the issue.
surrounded by morons

All this internet censoring/blocking/seizing is due to the fact that criminal offenses have yet to be proven consistently, so the MAFIAA is trying to ‘go upstream’ and dam the river of knowledge… This way, all of a sudden, they need not prove anything or have any trials… sad day that this BULLSHIIIIIT has been allowed… fuuck the world!
surrounded by morons

All this internet censoring/blocking/seizing is due to the fact that criminal offenses have yet to be proven consistently, so the MAFIAA is trying to ‘go upstream’ and dam the river of knowledge… This way, all of a sudden, they need not prove anything or have any trials… sad day that this BULLSHIIIIIT has been allowed… fuuck the world!

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As ISPs Mull Pact To Fight AFACT, Pirate Party Condemns ‘Extortion’

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