TorrentFreak

A key player in Australia’s negotiations to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) revealed itself last Monday and surprisingly it wasn’t News Ltd, the US Embassy in Canberra or even a reigning political party. The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade emerged as ACTA’s cheerleader-in-chief in Australia, trumpeting the benefits of the treaty before a rare open federal parliamentary committee.

As part of their never-ending quest to reduce copyright infringement major entertainment companies have been engaged in talks with ISPs and representatives from the Australian government. Worryingly, these meetings have been held in secret and all attempts to obtain information are being stonewalled. But now an ISP has revealed that the talks are failing, noting that there is a “massive gap” between the parties.

Collectively, we Australians can be a cowardly bunch, so scared of an unknown invader that we will sell our sovereignty for the illusion of protection. This fear is symbolised in the movie ‘Tomorrow When the War Began,’ a film of dubious quality that portrays an Australia under invasion from some shadowy Asiatic power.

Five of Australia’s largest ISPs have today put forward a detailed proposal to deal with the issue of illicit file-sharing. The paper proposes the implementation of a warning letter process, but unlike the 3 strikes-style regime in neighboring New Zealand, would not include an Internet disconnection sanction. Instead, rightsholders would head back to the legal system to punish persistent infringers.

Just over a week ago, a meeting was held behind closed doors between the Australian Attorney General, ISPs, and representatives of major media conglomerates. As we reported when the meeting was first announced, it seems the meeting is a followup to the threat made by AFACT about a three strikes policy. The meeting, which took [...]

Earlier this week we pointed out that the press increasingly started to question pro-copyright propaganda. One of the hopes we had was that the Attorney General would to the same during the “secret” stakeholder meeting that was organized today. The Australian Pirate Party agrees and rightfully notes that the meeting is also missing one of [...]

Two brothers from Brisbane, Australia who operated the popular private BitTorrent tracker MovieX have barely escaped a jail sentence. The two were arrested late 2008 for facilitating copyright infringement and both pleaded guilty. Speaking to TorrentFreak, one of the sentenced brothers says he regrets his wrongdoings, but also wants to refute many of the false claims that are currently being spread by the media.