Aussie Film Industry Appeals ISP Copyright Case 137
schliz writes "The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) has appealed a Federal Court judgement that this month exonerated ISP iiNet for its subscribers' copyright-infringing activities. In the widely publicised case, AFACT sought to penalize iiNet for its users having made 100k illegal downloads. A judge ruled that 'mere provision of access to internet is not the means to infringement,' but AFACT now claims the judgement 'left an unworkable online environment for content creators and content providers' and 'represents a serious threat to Australia's digital economy.'"
Why single out ISP's ? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't remember a single instance where a Postal Service, a Telephone Company or a Bank were asked to behave in this manner ?
Fine, monitor the transactions being made, report them to the concerned party upon presentation of a search warrant or other legal document. But an ISP should NOT be judge, jury and executioner, they should only ever be a "witness" / "informant" (delete as appropriate).
All these companies provide is a service, and they are only legally / morally obliged to report wrongdoings. They are not required to go in "Jack Bauer" style and take out the dirty pirates. That's the job of the legal system.
Why do they go after the ISPs ? (Score:1, Interesting)
Everybody knows, that without the PC, the user would not infringe. I think they should go after computer resellers. They are the ones guilty of providing the means of infringing. Or how about the harddisk manufacturers ? Without storage infringement would be short termed.
Gibberish Modded Up to +5 (Score:3, Interesting)
The publishers who spend their lives lying about the quality of the content they 'publish', who produce (not create) some of the worst content imaginable...where they pay peanuts to the best performing casting couch specialists, the endless parade of one hit drunken drug addled performance artists.
What does this work or those people actually contribute to society, is their work to be considered a useful art, or should their narcissist sociopathic behaviour become a part of shameful history. Their willingness to corrupt everything they touch, law, politics, society, and even children.....
It is lame to argue that what you steal has no value. It is lamer still to argue that you are less corrupt than those you steal from.
2008 was particularly rich in movies with impeccable geek cred:
The Dark Knight. Iron Man. Wall-E...
These were the torrents the geek relentlessly sought out and sucked down.
The geek knows what it costs to produce and market these films. The geek knows that there is only one Pixar and only one Andrew Stanton.
Re:The internet is a threat to the digital economy (Score:3, Interesting)