Australian ISP's To Crack Down On Piracy

xav_jones writes "The ABC is reporting that 'Australia's five major ISPs have revealed their plans to crack down on online piracy by sending warning notices to suspected illegal downloaders while assisting rights holders to pursue serial offenders through the courts.' The idea is that '[d]uring an 18-month trial, rights holders would send copyright infringement notices, including evidence of copyright infringement and the IP address involved, to ISPs who would then send "educational notices" to the internet users concerned.' Further action would entail that '[u]sers who are suspected of further copyright breaches would then receive up to three warning notices before rights holders are able to pursue court action.' This seems a gentler approach than other countries. Will it prove more effective and/or cost efficient?"

So, what...

[Anonymous Coward]

the Aussies are becoming more like the USA, where the corporations have more rights than the citizens?

Didn't we just get the latest round of analysis showing that MafiAA "evidence" isn't worth the tissue paper it's written on?

Re:this is not reasonable

[Spikeles]

Wrong. Please read full proposal. [commsalliance.com.au] Note specifically this section:

3.6 Discovery Notice from ISP to Account Holder

In the event that an Account Holder is sent one Education Notice and [three] Warning Notices, the ISP will match the IP address from its scheme database and then send a Discovery Notice to the Account Holder.

The Discovery Notice will inform the Account Holder that:

• the Rights Holder may then seek to apply for access to the Account Holders details by way of a preliminary discovery or subpoena application, for the sole purpose of the Rights Holder taking direct copyright infringement action against the Account Holder
• the ISP will notify the Rights Holder that the Account Holder has apparently failed to address the matters set out in the Notices
• should the ISP be served with a valid preliminary discovery order (or subpoena) the ISP will be required to comply with the order, which may require the ISP to disclose the Account Holders details to the Rights Holder.

So, in effect, the customer will get 4 warnings, then the ISP will respond to the rights holder, saying this ID number accessed files 4 times. Only then, may the rights holder start a court process to get the name and details of the account holder. Until the time that the court says so, the ISP will not divulge any of their customer details.