The Hollywood studios have lost a landmark case against the ISP iiNet today after an eight-week trial.
The case would have impacted how Australian ISPs would have had to react to potential pirates, but the judge ruled that iiNet was not responsible for the downloading habits of any of its subscribers.
Justice Cowdroy said all the evidence showed that iiNet was simply providing Internet service for its customers, not facilitating piracy. He did conclude, however, that iiNet had knowledge of infringements occurring and did not anything to stop them, which was fine as the ISP is simply “a legitimate communication facility,” not “intended nor designed to infringe copyright.”
“iiNet is not responsible if an iiNet user uses that system to bring about copyright infringement … the law recognises no positive obligation on any person to protect the copyright of another,” Justice Cowdroy added.
Result for: isps
According to Carphone Warehouse and Talk Talk CEO Charles Dunstone, piracy is unstoppable and the media industry’s call to have ISPs as watchdogs is “naive” at best.
Instead, Dunstone believes a more reasonable solution is to educate users about the “benefits of respecting copyright” while also launching services that will allow consumers to get music and movies cheaper and easily.
Speaking at TalkTalk’s quarterly conference call, Dunstone added:
“If you try speed humps or disconnections for peer-to-peer, people will simply either disguise their traffic or share the content another way. It is a game of Tom and Jerry and you will never catch the mouse. The mouse always wins in this battle and we need to be careful that politicians do not get talked into putting legislation in place that, in the end, ends up looking stupid.”
The media industry continues to push for controversial laws such as the ‘three strikes’ laws that would force ISPs to disconnect multiple time offenders.
“If people want to share content they will find another way to do it,” he added. “It is more about education and allowing people to get content easily and cheaply that will make a difference. This idea that it is all peer to peer and somehow the ISPs can just stop it is very naive.”
Result for: isps
According to new reports coming out of France, any ISP willing to join the RIAA in its “three strikes” your out laws against piracy will have to spend a lot of money to enforce the rules, as much as 16 million USD per year.
Although the laws have been struck down by the EP and the German government, they have been adopted in New Zealand and is moving towards adoption in France, where President Nicolas Sarkozy is a big proponent.
The ‘three strikes’ rules would give alleged pirates two email or written warnings from their ISP before they have their Internet connection completely shut off and their name blacklisted.
The French newspaper La Liberation added that if France were to adopt the rules, the bill could “trigger around 10,000 warning e-mails, 3000 letters and 1000 decisions about Internet cut-offs per day,” forcing the ISPs to hire new workers and incur new costs.
