AU Legal Group Says ISP Allowed 100K Illegal Downloads 191
In Australia, a court wrapped up day one of what promises to be a 4-week trial of media interests against ISP iiNet. Reader bennyboy64 writes "iTnews reports that Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft investigators claim to have recorded almost 100,000 instances of Australian internet service provider iiNet users making available online unauthorized copies of films and TV programs, lawyers for the film industry said in the Federal Court in Sydney today. The lawyers for the film industry claimed iiNet had done 'nothing' to discourage copyright infringement on its network. iTnews also has a background piece on the case, with a Flash-y graph."
New Zealand faces similar problems :( (Score:5, Interesting)
What's more is there's a kiwi group of 10 thousand artists against NZFACT because they're sick of being misrepresented. here's their press release tearing into NZFacT [creativefreedom.org.nz].
Re:Obligatory Car Analogy... (Score:2, Interesting)
A happy customer. (Score:4, Interesting)
This isn't the first time they've gone to court to protect the rights of its customers, and they are the only ISP down under who is (vocally) opposed to the government's "kiddy porn" filter.
This is precisely the reason why I have stuck with iiNet for over 10 years. They don't give a shit what I do with my bandwith, and use the money I pay them for it to invest in improving their network (and my service).
You would almost think that their job was moving bits around or something. The nerve!
Re:Pax (Score:1, Interesting)
To take it one step further (and even more ridiculous), the government "allows" the exact same crimes to happen by maintaining a road system which "allows" crime to happen.
A telephone company "allows" conspiricy to occur by maintaining a phone line system.
And so forth.
Re:Pax (Score:5, Interesting)
Well in this case it is even more interesting, they are not just trying to claim copyright theft on their works but on the title of their works. They claimed 29,914, hmm, did they download and validate that those titles as listed where in fact the works they claim to have ownership or did they just look at the title and pretend it was evidence. Lets see 97,942 instances even music at three minutes a piece that is still 4,800 hours of works they claim to a checked and confirmed as their content.
So the Federation Against Copyright Theft claim that iiNet has not monitored and censored their users, well I should hope not, as that would be an illegal and criminal act and iiNet would rightfully be sued for attempting to do so by their users and, of course prosecuted under law. In Australia it is a criminal act for companies to monitor telecommunications for any reason other than strictly limited checking of quality of service, not to be recorded and, not to be censored.
There are even privacy laws in place to protect employees from excess invasions of privacy, let alone customers and of course non-customers, those people the customers are communicating with who have no connection with the company providing telecommunication services.
Re:Obligatory Car Analogy... (Score:3, Interesting)
>>>the interstates were "designed" to keep traffic moving at about 80 mph, nationwide
Not correct. If you read the original Act from Congress, it mandates that the roads must be able to safely sustain 120 MPH travel. This was done immediately after World War 2 and the goal was to provide a way to move the U.S. Army rapidly across the continent as quickly as possible, hence the 120mph design minimum.