US Embassy Sanctioned Lawsuit Against Aussie ISP iiNet 263
New submitter Elenor writes with this story (excerpted) from TorrentFreak, another nugget gleaned from the cables made public by WikiLeaks: "The Canberra Wikileaks cables have revealed that the U.S. Embassy sanctioned a conspiracy by Hollywood studios to target Australian communications company iiNet through the local court-system, with the aim of establishing a binding common-law precedent which would make ISPs responsible for the unauthorised file-sharing of their customers. Both the location, Australia, and the target, iiNet, were carefully selected. A precedent set in Australia would be influential in countries with comparable legal systems such as Canada, India, New Zealand and Great Britain. Australian telecommunications giant Telstra was judged too large for the purposes of the attack. Owing to its smaller size and more limited resources, iiNet was gauged the perfect candidate." The cable describes no overt action on the part of the American embassy, but the wording is telling: "Mike Ellis, the Singapore-based President for Asia Pacific of the Motion
Picture Association ... said MPAA did not see any role for Embassy at this
time, but wanted to keep us informed."
Right on time! (Score:5, Funny)
As I post this, it's almost 10:00am on Wednesday, January 24 in Perth, Australia where iiNet is headquartered.
How many Aussies will take to the streets after reading this? Ehhhh... there's one! Oh, that's just a pedestrian... how about that one?!! Nope. Going to his car.
(sound of crickets)
(fade to black)
Re:Political consequences? (Score:4, Funny)
For the US embassy to take part in that, couldn't this seen as a hostile act by the victim country?
Only if said victim country wasn't already the US' bitch.
Re:Wow. Get a load of that. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wow. Get a load of that. (Score:4, Funny)
Thuggery, buggery and some skullduggery. Hang on a minute, who are the pirates again?
Jack Sparrow, James Hook, Long John Silver, and Guybrush Threepwood.
Re:Act of War (Score:5, Funny)
Not only do we have oil, we have coal, natural gas and uranium.
And what do you all do? Drive on the wrong side of the road and export Vegemite.
What sort of contribution to civilization is that?
Re:Act of War (Score:4, Funny)
That's why we export it.
Re:Wow. Get a load of that. (Score:5, Funny)