Movie Studios Sue ISP Over BitTorrent Piracy
Written by enigmax on November 20, 2008Seven Hollywood studios including Paramount, Sony, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, Warner Bros and Disney have teamed up to sue iiNet, Australia’s third largest ISP. iiNet is accused of doing little to stop its subscribers from sharing copyright works via BitTorrent. The ISP denies the accusations.
iiNet, one of Australia’s largest ISPs with over 1,400 staff, was the first company in the country to offer DSL speeds over 1.5 Mbit/s to the regular consumer market, and now offers speeds of up to 24 Mbit/s. These relatively healthy speeds have proven attractive to iiNet’s customers and in common with subscribers at other ISPs, many have been utilizing their bandwidth by sharing copyright works via BitTorrent. Seven Hollywood studios are so incensed they are now sueing iiNet.
Today, through an AFACT (Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft) press release, studios including Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Disney Enterprises, Inc. and the Seven Network (the top rated free-to-air broadcaster in Australia), announced that they are to sue iiNet for copyright infringement.
The companies state that they are suing iiNet for “failing to take reasonable steps, including enforcing its own terms and conditions, to prevent known unauthorized use of copies of the companies’ films and TV programs by iiNet’s customers via its network.”
Adrianne Pecotic, Executive Director of AFACT said that the studios were forced to sue, since iiNet failed to take action against its customers who the studios claim are committing copyright infringement. Chris Chard, Managing Director of Roadshow Entertainment, claims their titles Happy Feet, No Reservation and I am Legend had all been pirated by iiNet customers using BitTorrent.
The studios want iiNet to disconnect infringers, but up to now, iiNet has refused to do so. Mark White, chief operating officer at iiNet told APC that his company would consult with the Internet Industry Association (IIA) to formulate a response.
“Our view is pretty straightforward. We don’t condone or support piracy in any form, and people who choose to pirate content should face the force of the law,” he said. “This is an industry issue, and we’ve been talking with the IIA, and we’ll work with them in terms of handling it.”
iiNet’s CEO Michael Malone said that the company disputes AFACT’s claims that they refused to do anything about the problem, telling Computerworld, “They send us a list of IP addresses and say ‘this IP address was involved in a breach on this date’. We look at that say ‘well what do you want us to do with this? We can’t release the person’s details to you on the basis of an allegation and we can’t go and kick the customer off on the basis of an allegation from someone else’. So we say ‘you are alleging the person has broken the law; we’re passing it to the police. Let them deal with it’.”
Of course, it is not unusual for movie studios, copyright holders and commentators to skim over the details in claiming that it’s trivial to kill copyright infringement, it absolutely is not. Just this week, Mike Mulligan of Jupiter Research said in a piece entitled “Why Music Can’t ‘Just Be Free’”, that all P2P developers (and presumably ISPs in this case) have to do is “support their claims off innocence by embedding filtering mechanisms into their apps.” TorrentFreak wrote to Mike offering to present precise details of his suggestions to Vuze, LimeWire, Shareaza and Morpheus but, unsurprisingly, there has been no response.
The problem is clearly not lost on Michael Malone: “I think they genuinely believe that ISPs have a secret magic wand that we are hiding and if we bring it out we can make piracy disappear just by waving it.”
The legal action against iiNet was filed in Australia’s Federal Court on November 20th (today), and the proceedings will continue December 20th 2008.
Previously: Toyota Admits Wrongdoing in Wallpaper Case
Next: Music Industry Takes Soulseek to Court
77 Responses
Ops! Im on IInet! :D
We can’t release the person’s details to you on the basis of an allegation and we can’t go and kick the customer off on the basis of an allegation from someone else’.
Nuff said.
The only way to stop sharing over internet, is to shut down internet, but then the people will share the old way, by exchange DVD’s and CD’s, so that is’t not a solution, to shut down the internet.
Its impossible to monitor all internet traffic, and we don’t open every letter and package from the postal mail, so why monitor.
Let us free, big brother is watching us enough.
It gets better and better… Going to be great when the filter comes in… We used to think we were an extra US state, now we seem to be becoming a Chinese province.
Anyone else up for a move to Canada?
God damn American suits trying to prevent our right to share. Im not with iinet but I despise those yuppie suits that sit in there office, live in there McManshions and drive there fucking fuel guzzling cars and don’t notice that there is a global crisis and if anyone that had the money they would go out and buy the dvd even though the movie has made the suits rich already. However, while they try to get richer there are hundreds of people in countries where there movies a pressed on dvd ect that can’t watch movies because they have no tv but someday maybe able to access this content because of the internet and BT technology when there is a computer and a reasonable internet connection. So instead of wasting there money on trying to sue ISPs and individual pirates there money could and should be put to better use and helping the poor people that are going to suffer as a result of these suits and there unregulated financial turmoil as a result of there greed! I want to give a personal fuck you to any suits ready this and until there is no possible way to illegally download there movies and tv shows I will knowingly will continuously do so knowing that there will be less money for them to spend.
shit are the iinet customers safe?
Yeah the new Australian filter is going to absolutely F*** EVERYTHING UP!
No porn, no file-sharing, AND SERIOUSLY SLOWED SPEEDS!!! Bring back the midget with the eyebrows, pronto.
If iiNet win this case it’ll do a lot of good in the world.
Fingers crossed.
If iinet rolls over on this I know I’ll be telling then to get shafted.
Quick trip down memory lane —- how many of you remember when hollywood kept trying to sue VHS, and remember the great debate over blank tape cassettes? Is piracy the real issue here? Or perhaps it could be something else?? Personally I think its all just an excuse just to keep everybodies bandwidth down just so they get to keep the prices of the service higher.
The technology is there to give people loads more bandwidth than what we get now. Trouble is that if there is abundance then all of the profit for the corporations goes flying out the window. The more scarcity there is, the higher the profits. Simple as that. But i am getting fedup with hearing PIRACY all the time. Piracy has been going on for years and years.
The filter is already in place guys, the reason you haven’t noticed is because you are not into kiddie porn. Enjoy the internet with training wheels (there’s really no difference) :)
This is just sad, someone finally offers better speed in australia and they get sued over it… It’s not a problem if everyone in australia uses a 1.5mb connection to share stuff but if they get faster connection then it’s illegal? WTF? That’s like suing isp’s for providing internet for people. Someone seriously needs to stop those idiotic movie studios, it’s bad enought they sue people making p2p software but suing ips’s for proving faster internet connections is just going way over the line.
This action was taken with the sole intent of banckrupting iinet or silencing them because they dared to criticise the internet filter. No other ISP has been sued and Telstra ignores copyright holder requests.
This is nothing more than revenge or something the mafia would do.
The real target of the filter is not and never has been child porn. They are just building a structure so they can in future target political dissent such as holocaust research.
U.K. isp ‘AOL’ use a filtering technology called SANDVINE. What it does basically is throttle connections to P2P apps and tv streaming sites. Also napster and itunes are throttles as well as internet radio stations and even I,ve even heard once from a property developer I know that google earth was throttled which was not very helpful since he uses that site constantly. Anyways it looks like IINET subscribers are about to get the same deal. Maybe the isps are actually BEHIND all of this, maybe they are lobbying via the Hollywood studios in order to gain more control over the internet
Fingers crossed will not cut it.
If ISPs even humour these Hollywood bastards by pretending like they are morally obliged to extend themselves a millimetre beyond the strict letter of the law to ‘protect’ their worthless shit, then they are effectively agreeing with the plaintiffs in argueing for an extension of copyright law, via enforced filtering, three-strikes or otherwise eroding all internet users freedom, which corrupt and repressive states, e.g. Australia, will be only too happy to provide.
As such, it appear from the outset that iiNet does not want to win this case, merely hedge prudently to best protect their financial interest, so I would have to rate their chances as ultimately very poor.
The P2Ping public is making a value-judgement here, worldwide … “Hollywood, your agitprop/spam-ridden tripe is absolutely worthless, and that is exactly how much I am willing to pay for it … Zilch!”
As for this cowardly ISP grassing their clients details to the police (on the basis of zero evidence of any criminal behaviour), well, that is just a CYA of about the lowest calibre, and likely also could be construed as defamation.
Either direct state harassment / criminal prosecution will shortly ensue or the police database of grassed-up filesharers will be sold/leaked to the studios as the basis for mass civil suits.
In either case, it is past time for Australian (and all other) net users to recognise their best interests are not represented by commercial ISPs and a.s.a.p. get themselves organised into a ‘Pirate Party’ or similar to actively boycott any business willing to parley with the enemy. (i.e., Bankrupt iiNet, maybe whoever buys up the infrastructure will be less treacherous towards those who foot their bills)
The internet will not remain a bastion of free speech without a determined fight, so get your mitts up, kidz!
Why sue the ISP :S thats like sue’ing a car brand for making cars that can go over the speed limit .. or suing gun makers because you shoot the wrong guy :S
A filter will never work, as there are ways to hide the copyrighted content from prying eyes, no matter who they are.
What happens when people start renaming files from Some_2008_Film_aXXo.iso to hsdfghdfgdfhjgdcyefgedf.dat?
this is absolutely retarded. I’m on iinet and I support them 100% because unlike some more easily persuaded isp’s they stand up for their users rights.
Why might I ask, have they decided to sue iinet and not optus or telstra?
I think it’s because ONLY iinet offer a decent download quota and don’t include upload speeds as part of their “caps” unlike the other isp’s.
RALMAO.
Dear torrentfreak and thepiratebay,
Please save our internet from the australian government’s ‘content filter’ and the big movie studio’s crusade against freedom.
Thank you.
People, corporate powers don’t care about small private trackers but big ones, and people using it.
The idea is to lower piracy drastically, not stopping it, as there’s logically no way you can do it. Piracy started the same or next day first software was released.
I remember a time when you aussies kept running your mouth around and about, about how shitty the US is.And now you have a great firewall comming soon that you are paying for with your tax dollars.
OH SAVE US USoA SAVE US
HELP US SAVE OUR INTERNETS
I laugh in your face
Looks like AU is the test case for more anti-piracy tactics. Seems we have a combination of governance, population, technology penetration and perhaps a legal system that big US internet corporations like to use to test the water.
First eBay tried to push through anti-competitive payment crap, not Hollywood is trying to set a precedent in our legal system by making a ’sue the messenger’ case work.
iiNet is a good ISP. They have arguably been the first to nail the geeks-who-want-big-download-quota-and-fast-speed market. They were one of the first to invest in their own DSLAM equipment at the former monopoly Telstra’s exchanges.
Australia’s telco market has not been opened to competition for (relatively) very long. Value-focused ISPs like iiNet should be rewarded for having the courage to compete with the established players Telstra and Optus.
At the moment though, another provider – TPG Internet – has the best deals in terms of allowed quota, speed and cost. It’s a little surprising Hollywood did not pursue TPG first.
As for why they didn’t attack Telstra, well, they know Telstra would have been a tougher target. A lot of Australians also purchased shares in Telstra during it’s long, slow and staggered privatisation. Attacking Telstra would therefore be seen to be attacking ‘the good guys’: middle Australia who can afford to buy an internet connection, shares in Telstra and still buy media off the shelf.
In addition to that, Telstra are making an effort to enable legal means of downloading content through their BigPond brand. I expect Hollywood doesn’t want to risk that succeeding, especially since Telstra is a big shareholder in Australia’s only cable TV service: Foxtel.
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/21799/127/
iiNet has been outspoken against the internet filter which is coming into Australia – so its not hard to see why they are now being targeted. Ill bet Conroy had a huge part to play in this
Oh yeah and can I just say – iinet is basically the only ISP in australia which offers decent internet speeds and service. Australia is seriously LACKING when it comes to the internet and broadband speeds – I thought I heard Rudd mention something about ‘improving Australia’s broadband’ in his election promises?? Oh what a surprise – NO CHANGE YET. And now iiNet is being sued!??! Why dont they just sue the whole internet while theyre at it -_-
wtf are there no laws protecting ISPs from such ridiculous claims in AU?
“failing to take reasonable steps, including enforcing its own terms and conditions, to prevent known unauthorized use of copies of the companies’ films and TV programs” that doesn’t really sound like a law oO?
“I expect Hollywood doesn’t want to risk that succeeding, especially since Telstra is a big shareholder in Australia’s only cable TV service: Foxtel.”
What about Austar?
I hope they win because then I can sue my gas company because someone misused gas.
I can also sue the water company because someone sprayed me when I was walking by and the water company should stop that.
I can also sue the garbage man because someone has been misusing my garbage and they should do something about it.
Yay im going to be so rich!
The RIAA is bribing legislators to pass anti-piracy laws to be enforced at taxpayer’s expense:
http://blogs.computerworld.com/riaa_tax
How will the point ever go through to them that such things are, in fact, incorrect to do? I would think never; after all, they are an interest party, and forever will remain comitted to their twisted interest.
However, I think that this is also not something to leave alone. Therefore, something still must be done.
The fight must be lead by grassroots. Who else is able to be to lead the fight? Certainly not the ISPs.
Roze
http://www.10ch.org/
the movie companies should sue themselves for handing out screeners like they were candy, and for releasing almost every movie that comes out early on DVD in Russia.
We all know about R5’s. The early piracy of films (examples: Wanted, Rambo, Hancock, Tropic Thunder, etc…) are due to the studios being idiots and releasing these films on DVD in Russia while they are still in the theaters here.
THE PIRACY IS THEIR OWN FAULT!!
Maybe if they came up with some REAL form of copy protection and stopped releasing stuff early in Russia, they wouldn’t have these problems.
In fact, why did the movie companies allow DVD burners to be sold to the public in the first place?
I’ve had a claim filed against me from AFACT. My particular isp (Exetel) actually cuts users off after you get a few of these. Next time another claim comes in they temporarily block my internet and ask me to explain myself.
It’s disgusting. This has forced me to get more educated and more secretive about the way I P2P. Now I seed at the very much I can on private torrent trackers and try to only download from them (except they don’t really have older stuff :( ). So this whole things is actually increasing piracy for me :D.
It’s still annoying as fuck though.
AFACT? as far as cunts throw?
I think they sue the IPS’s because there tryinbg to put pressure on them to be more strict with there file-sharing customers.
http://www.aquariumfish.me
“Adrianne Pecotic, Executive Director of AFACT said that the studios were forced to sue, since iiNet failed to take action against its customers who the studios claim are committing copyright infringement.”
What!? Those bastards! I wonder why iiNet failed to take action.
Oh, wait. I know why. It’s because iiNet isn’t legally responsible for for its customers’ activities.
These studios trying to sue iiNet might as well be trying to sue Nike for failing to take action agaisnt jaywalkers.
Maybe they think they can win because of their combined wealth? In that case, I’ve got some bad news dor them: all the money in the world isn’t enough to prop up this stillborn lawsuit. Have fun taking one more step towards extinction, you worthless, greedy, parasitic old dinosaurs.
Oh… And also, AFACT can go AFUCK itself. Learn the difference bwteen theft and replication, Adrianne Pecotic, then maybe you can rename AFACT to something that actually reflects reality. If you can find any time between your busy schedule of fellating horses, that is.
australia is a shitty country
The RIAA and MPAA are terrorists organizations.
Each time that you buy a RIAA album or a MPAA movie (DVD, cinema) you are supporting terrorism, remember that.
#35
who is more parasitic? the producing entities who pay the content creators SOME MONEY or the droves of internet nerd robin hoods who pay the content creators NO MONEY?
answer that you idiot.
13 Nov 20, 2008 at 13:09 by F**k the filter
“This action was taken with the sole intent of banckrupting iinet or silencing them because they dared to criticise the internet filter. No other ISP has been sued and Telstra ignores copyright holder requests.”
Yeah, why are they not going after Telstra? Could it just be that Telstra has a gazillion lawyers to fight it, so they pick on the little guy instead?
Just maybe?
Where is the obligation on the copyright industry to adapt their 19th century business model to the realities of 21st century economics and technology?
Wit All The Fucked Up Shit Happening In The World.People Spend Money To Stop File Shareing Instead Of Careing For Our Youth’s.FTW!
OMG #7 that was f**king hilarious!!! That made my day.
They should sue God instead. Oh wait, not possible because God has no address. Doh!
The timing of this is just far too convenient. Live trials of the Australian censorship filter are starting soon and iiNet is one ISP who said they would be participating (to show the government exactly how much it will slow down access and incorrectly block sites under real use conditions).
There is no way of telling legal traffic from illegal on BitTorrent without watching specific swarms. Going by tracker means nothing – legal things like the Pure Pwnage webisodes are distributed on ThePirateBay, as was Slacker Uprising, Steal This Film, a Nine Inch Nails album and any number of other popular Creative Commons projects. But that doesn’t matter to the movie industry, they want to filter copyrighted work and to them that means blocking all P2P. And with a national censorship filter they have the opportunity to kill off access to every major tracker and indexing site they can name.
But the case they’ve lodged is absurd. They may as well sue themselves for releasing DVDs and Blu-Rays that do not effectively prevent copying. iiNet has no right, responsibility or ability to detect, let alone prevent, illegal use of P2P. In their eyes traffic is just blocks of data in whatever protocol, often encrypted or obfuscated so they can’t even tell which protocol it is let alone how it’s being used.
Please TF, write up an article about our net filter. It will have a devastating effect on torrenting in Australia for anyone who doesn’t have a seedbox (and believe me I will get one if it comes to that).
OH noes. What will I do if I can’t download a new dvd rip in 10 minutes? Gigity-Gigity-Goo !!
I would wager there are just as many infringers on the telstra bigpond network, funny that big content just doesn’t have a distribution deal with iinet.
Just called them to say that if they cooperate with these lawyers I would like to immediately terminate my account. They noted it in my account details.
#22
the US is still shitty
wouldnt live anywhere else
What a coincidence that AFACT is making noise over piracy at the same time when the government is trialing ISP filtering.
Strange that iiNet said they would participate in the internet filter trails just to prove that it’s not workable and suddenly they get sued. Now if only the government pursued the NBN with the same gusto they have for internet filtering. Most people is Australia are stuck with Wireless or Satellite. The big boys (movie/music industry) are just bullying the small guys (iiNet), as far as I can see iiNet have done everything they are suppose to by the book.
soon they are going to sue the directors for making movies that people like to pirate..
Any brisbane protests to either this or the internet filter around?
Keen to get involved in that
I wish everyone would just STOP going to the stupid movies, STOP buying the stupid DVDs and show these idiots what its all about!
Jess
http://www.anonymity.cz.tc
i would participate in vic :)
@14
Other countries I’d believe that, but it doesn’t really hold in Australia because they already have us living with download limits, on/off peak times and often connections that drop out several times a day.
And they can just name their price for whatever connection they are prepared to give.
Plus noone really has a reason to restrict services because
a. the speed is bloody slow to begin with
b. ISPs don’t usually have a competing service.
The other day, my house got broken into. I saw the criminals drive off in a Ford! I want to file a class action against Ford! We should all sue Ford for supplying cars to criminals. I know quite a few people who have sen criminals drive Fords, so they must be supporting crime!
omg your so right.. ford should DO something about that!!! THERE SHOULD BE CRIMINAL ACTIVITY PREVENTION SYSTEMS IN FORD!
Violation of Copyright is a matter for the police authority and not the Internet Service Provider (ISP). There is no way that an ISP can control the internet usage of its customers. I understand why iiNet refuses to bend over. The “Seven Hollywood Studios” should clean up their own backyard before they start to accuse someone else. I really hope that iiNet win this case.
Remember to seed – Umbraco
i held off on commenting upon this because i had to do some research
the reason why such a large seasoned group of copyright holders is attacking in Australia is because they have had it on good confidence from the Australian administration that political wind is in their favour
ie. they will win
it is for the Australian people to resolve this by removing the corrupt politicians … you know who it is
http://www.h33t.com from the poisoned coast to the land of opportunity
Damnit i’m with iiNet. Hmmm wonder what the police can/will do with this list of IP addresses. Well if iiNet loses I will have lost all respect in my country…. Probably get the first ticket out of Aus to Canada in that case. Damn you AFACT. And the Australian government for simply the concept of filtering content that may be seen as ethicaly wrong. I’m amazed they haven’t just started filtering file-sharing traffic with their brand new firewall rather than launch these expensive lawsuits.
Response to my email (#35):
Thank you for your email.
With regards to your query, it is advisable that according to our Customer Relation Agreement we do not give out our customers information.
We only give the information to the police upon request if there is a criminal investigation.
For any additional enquiries please contact us on our support number 13 22 58 or reply to this email.
Kind Regards
Facts:
1. All ISPs in Australia offer 1.5 M speeds under ADSL2 (See http://www.Bigpond.com.au)and the Australian Government has a policy to make these speeds available to more than 90% of the nation (http://www.dbcde.gov.au/).
2. The Australai /US Free Trade Agreement was stuck for a long time on copyright issues, with the US Farm Trade lobbies affected. The deal was done by the ex Australian Prime Minister, John Howard and George Bush, who both pandered to the “big end of town” including the studio heads.
3. Torrent lovers should bombard their media and politicians with the news that the StudionBosses will threaten the FTA’s future (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/10/26/1067103267228.html)
google the words USFTA copyright threatens and see how big this deal could be.
4. Create a page or picture, say a caricuture of a studio boss porking someone or something, copyright it in Australia by adding a the c symbol with the word copyright Australia “all rights reserved” flash it around the networks, including people from sony etc. then send the message to the new government that Bush’s shonky trade deal will unravel and hurt farmers, auto workers and US Auto subsidiaries in Australia, who were just given Billion Dollar Lifelines from Australian Taxpayers.
Australia’s biggest ISP (Telstra Bigpond)is run by a Yank, Sol Trujillo, who should have been the studios’ first target. However, he has deals for distribution of Studio content so they have conspired to not touch him. google his name and you see he gets paid $16 million a year, despite his share price tanking. But Guess what? If iinet is broken by the INVADERS he will try to pick up the market share! The Headline should read BIG STUDIOS ATTACKING SMALL ISP TO BENEFIT TELSTRA. Run this to your Antitrust people, with the news that it threatens the USFTA.
Australians laughed the other day when US Auto Execs crying poor and seeking handouts arrived by jet and were slam-dunked by Brad Sherman. The same should apply to Studio heads who fail to drop the price of product to people willing to get a direct feed. These turkeys are too thick to realise that they cannot stop the internet, and can make more money direct selling at 2 buck a copy than trying to hold onto the past. It’s a wonder they moved from VHS to DVDs!!
read this article on Parallel Importation ( http://www.austlii.edu.au/
au/journals/DTLJ/2003/3.html)
and particularly para 27.Australia is a relatively small and isolated market, which is attractive because it has a high income per capita. It is also a net importer of copyright material.[43] Parallel importers benefit consumers as they increase the availability of genuine articles at a cheaper price. A free competitive market equates the cost of producing goods with the price an individual consumer is prepared to pay. This maximises the society’s use of resources. As intellectual property rights restrict this they cause market failure, the cost of which consumers bear.”
Aussies currently pay more for DVDs than US consumers because the Australian government often bends over to US lobbyists. But it is coming to an end. iinet should subpeona all correspondence between telstra and Fox and use it in a case to the ACCC (www.accc.gov.au), our anti-trust equivalent. Torrenters, spread these messages to millions by adding them to torrent download pages. We have the combined might to beat these turkeys!
“This is a very important test case for the internet industry in Australia,” said Peter Coroneos, chief executive of the Internet Industry Association.
“It will test the effect of the safe harbour provisions that were introduced with the US free trade agreement, which provides immunity for ISPs in certain circumstances such as transmission, hosting, caching and referencing activities.”
Coroneos said the IIA board will shortly convene to develop a response on the legal action against iiNet.
But while the movie industry has now stepped up its aggression, the music industry has yet to take legal action against any internet providers over the issue.
Here’s some extracts from Rupert Murdoch’s paper, the Australian.
AUSTRALIA’S biggest film and television companies have ignited a long-simmering war with the internet sector, lodging a lawsuit against Perth-based broadband provider iiNet seeking damages that could run into millions of dollars.
The group, which includes Warner Bros, Sony Pictures, Disney ….. Did you know these companies are Australian??? Come off it, Rupe!!!
The article then fesses up as follows ….
Twentieth Century Fox, owned by News Corporation, which also owns The Australian, is also party to the action. AHA!!!!! The plot thickens!!!
So lets review this issue so far. Telstra, the biggest ISP in Australia, also wholesales the new ADSL2+ (20 Mb per second) service to smaller ISPs. So Telstra should be the Prime Target for the film industry law suit.
iinet (http://www.iinet.net.au/) has built a competitive high-speed network offering bundled telephone services for a cheap price, a better deal for consumers, which threatens to cut into Telstra’s monopoly profits. Sol Trujillo, like the US Auto chiefs, has his private jet and is trying to get money from the Aus Government for Broadband expansion.
News Limited, owner of FOX (including that crappy FOXNEWS channel you yanks have to put up with) is also a partner with Telstra in PayTV in Australia, so also has a “triple vested interest” in attacking iinet, the good guys in this saga of greed and corruption from the big end of town.
The big question for Aussies is “does Prime Minister Kevin Rudd have the balls to take on these monopolists and get the ACCC involved??
I hope so. We need to spread these words in the cause of truth and justice!
Lastly, a fun extract from the Sydney Morning Herald May 26, 2004. Is this chic paranoid or what?
Radar questioned the boss of the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft lobby group, Adrianne Pecotic.
Radar: Video pirates funding terrorism? That’s a big call.
Pecotic: Links between IP [intellectual property] crime and terrorism have been documented by Interpol.
Radar: But how do you know pirates actually fund terrorists?
Pecotic: You have to look at the Interpol report. Piracy attracts people involved in terrorism and organised crime.
Radar: Which terrorists does it fund?
Pecotic: We know of links with Hezbollah and the IRA and other similar terrorist groups.
Radar: Thank you. – Robert Gibson
Pitchy but keen
We all know BitTorrent isn’t illegal as it’s a benencoded file. (SHA1 Algorithm)
Any company that tries to sue are going to go after people they cannot get too, Example: Another country, other than the US.
Granted they have tried but ISPs are strict now-in-days and won’t release our information.
Here’s a point of thought of long-time few months ago;
We download Movies.
We download TV Shows.
Providers that complain we do this;
They partner with companies to offer “FREE STREAMING SERVICES”
IMdb: You can watch FREE TV Shows and Movies
YouTube: You can watch FREE TV Shows and Movies. (Soon, not sure if it’s online yet.)
NetFlix and Blockbuster: Offers FREE MOVIE and TV SHOWS watching (From DVDs)
TV Stations: Offer FREE streaming services on their website. (FOX, NBC, ABC, CW Etc…)
They have partners and it’s all “LEGAL”.
When we watch it; We’re using aprox the same amount of bandwidth if we were to download it from BitTorrent.
Only difference is they don’t make money from US getting it from somewhere else.
The fact is, We’re doing stuff illegal when they publicly allow it on their sites and/or partners?
What are we doing so wrong?
to nail the geeks-who-want-big-download-quota-and-fast-speed market. They were one of the first to invest in their own DSLAM equipment at the former monopoly Telstra’s exchanges.
Australia’s telco market has not been
Michael Malone is the best chief executive of an ISP the world over. The man is down to earth and on the money with his perception of the industry and consequentially his comments. I listen intently to what he has to say.
I’m about to sue the government entity responsible for building and maintaining roads because other road users are speeding.
It’s illeagle to obtain things for free if the specific owner says it is. The owners in this case seem to be crowing thier case & all in all it will be the courts who decide. I’m not impressed to see it’s Telstra that y’all yanks have lined up on the choppin’ block & this had better not be another Bush-Howard style conviction by psychology.I want to see real proof & not just a pack of cowards playing mind games.
Wow, Sony *CLAP* for finally getting one media type right! What’s that make you like 1 for 80? Paramount, Universal, Fox, and Warner Bros. Produce something worth paying $10 to see and I might go to a movie theater. And lastly Disney, who the fuck cares, even kids think your movies are for helmet wearing R-Tards! The saddest thing is they’re all guilty of producing absolute shit packed with verbal and visual advertisements. But yet musician, actors, and producers still make record breaking amounts of money! So the way I look at, they should be more than happy making anything let alone the money they’re currently making. GLUTENOUS PIGS!
Can’t understand them greedy film makers- check http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/?region=uk how much money they making. And thats only UK.
If u buy anything in the shop u can get refund if u don’t like it- u can’t do that with DVDs or CDs.
Now. Who needs over 2Mb broadband if they don’t share the files?
My ISP sent me an email which was from CBS outlining i had downloaded a tv show which was copyrighted material and that they should cut me off,(thanks for alerting me to Media Sentry :) ) but then a line down they said that this particular show’s episode was freely availaible from their website but when you try to watch it ohh sorry your IP address is from austrlaia so it can’t be viewed WTF….
ok now if the movies where not so expensive to go to with kids in soem instanses
and if tv sations stop screwing around with shows
pu them on take them off
do reruns
kill a show
ten there would not be any piracy
to speak of
some people i know d/ol movies watch it and then if it is good go buy the dvd
but i know some rent it copy it then what is the diffrence
get it for 1.99 overnight 2 hours later it is copied back to teh store the next day
no sorry tv stations are to blame for the crap that they have put themselves in
and the movies listed that they say where downloaded where shit and and they are using this bss to say it was the pirates who caused the failure of the movies
nope movies where shit in the first place
Total BS, It shouldn’t be the isp’s responsibility to watch over your stupid movies. If you don’t want your crap stolen then protect it better yourselves. Maybe if the movie industry was smart enough to hire good people they could have good copy protection on dvd’s…
The only “piracy” an isp should have to care about is people stealing their internet service..
I have always been of the opinion that so long as you make no financial gain from copied music or movie, then there should be no harm. These music and movie industries aren’t half as bothered about you making financial gain from the material (even though that is an inexcusable crime). They are bothered because the downloader isn’t spending his/her money intially on the product by obtaining it in a way that gives all these companies (not the artists) the money they used to gain pre torrent days. They are frustrated, really frustrated.
If it is affecting them so much, why don’t they just ask the torrent sites creators/admin to close down?? Why…..because that is too hard and time consuming, so instead they go after the downloaders themselves. All that does is give an impression of companies who like to bully and intimidate people as opposed to do their jobs and attack the sources of these available files, not the downloaders themselves.
And another thing, if it is supposedly even illegal to make a copy of an existing piece of copyrighted work, why do shops sell blank cd’s, dvd’s, burners and other software used solely for the use of duplicating material. They know it goes on all over the world and yet they never pull the plug on selling those items
Strange isn’t it?? The law, what a joke!! finding real criminals like rapists and murderers and terrorists is just too hard and dangerous a job for you eh? So what do you, go after people for obtaining music and films which in most cases are used for sole use anyway. Yes we shouldn’t be obtaining them this way but theres more serious crimes out there…sheesh!!
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