Justic Jagot said it was not unreasonable or overly burdensome for iiNet to implement a strategy of warning customers as they already mechanisms in place for other account issues (non-payment fees, spam, etc).

That said, Emmett says rights holders pay “reasonable costs”. Jagot said ISP should pay, and Nicholas makes no comment.

1-1, and hardly clear who will foot the bill for such a system going forward.

If that’s correct, then a case centred on the issue will quickly show that it is so – and it seems to me highly unlikely that any court will go against those practises and find in favour of AFACT. Apart from anything else, I think they would want very compelling reasons to overturn industry standards and contradict other legal authorities that have already accepted this as reasonable – especially if that change is on behalf of a commercial organisation like AFACT: the “natural” onus is upon AFACT to pay, as they are the beneficiaries of the requested service.

Any other decision would logically only lead to an impossible quantity of spurious complaints made by AFACT and other parties who have a vested interest in harming the internet – all the MAFIAA would have to do is get each of it’s corporate members to do separate searches for every infringement they can find, submit all the complaints in the suggested way and then sue iiNet yet again, for not being able to simultaneously investigate millions of complaints in a timely fashion.

The judges are working to the obligations of Australian law, but they don’t seem to me to be lacking in common sense. If AFACT tries to abuse whatever system comes out of all this, I think they’ll almost certainly lose. :)

RE: AFACT paying costs. One judge made the comment that AFACT should pay *reasonable costs*. One judge said iiNet should absorb the costs. The other made no comment. So it is 1-1 in that regards, and on that, the cost issue is fair from certain who must pay for implementing a scheme.

RE: AFACT paying costs. One judge made the comment that AFACT should pay *reasonable costs*. One judge said iiNet should absorb the costs. The other made no comment. So it is 1-1 in that regards, and on that, the cost issue is fair from certain who must pay for implementing a scheme.