australian
Studios continue battle with Australian ISPs, appeal ruling
Thirty-four movie studios today appealed a crucial Australian ruling which found that ISPs have no obligation to act on letters that allege copyright infringement by subscribers. iiNet, the third-largest ISP in Australia, received tens of thousands of such notices, but its policy was to treat them all as mere allegations until a judge had ruled that “infringement” actually took place. Disconnecting or otherwise sanctioning its own customers without this judicial oversight would essentially make the ISP a copyright cop—a notoriously tough job, and one that was outside the company’s realm of expertise.
Continue reading »Nintendo Pirate Fined $1.5 Million
Major distribution companies now use forensic technology in their battle against illegal file sharing, which facilitated the prosecution of James Burt from Queensland, recently mandated by the Federal Court to pay damages of $1.5 million for uploading a Nintendo game on the Internet. The state-of-the-art technology aided in identifying the man responsible for pirating and illegally sharing a new Super Mario Bros game that was still waiting to be officially released. The upload generated record-breaking activity among the community of downloaders, with 50,000 downloads in only six days.
Continue reading »File-Sharing Legislation Not A Solution, Says Australian Minister
A few days ago we informed you about Australian ISP iiNet's victory against an alliance of movie and television studios. Stephen Conroy In recent comments about the case Communications minister Stephen Conroy said: “It's always disappointing when situations like this end up in court. I think that a mature approach by both the movie industry and the internet industry – sitting down, having a conversation and coming up with a code of practice – is the absolutely preferable outcome.” At the same time Conroy pointed out to the inefficiency in pursuing file sharers.
Continue reading »Anonymous targets Australian government over porn filters
The Australian government found itself victim of a cyberattack on Wednesday morning as a protest against the government’s plan to begin filtering certain types of pornography from being accessed online The attack was carried out by the group Anonymous (yes, that Anonymous) as part of “Operation: Titstorm,” an effort to push back on Australia for including a plethora of perfectly legal content as part of its Internet filtering initiative. Two government sites were taken down temporarily, and officials have (unsurprisingly) condemned the attacks. The denial of service attacks began at 8am Australian Time Wednesday morning (5pm Eastern Time Tuesday night) and targeted the Australian government’s main website as well as the Parliament site .
Continue reading »Movie Studios Lose Landmark Case Against Aussie ISP
The Federal Court has today ruled in favor of Aussie ISP iiNet following a copyright infringement case instigated by AFACT, the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft. Last year several studios including Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Disney Enterprises, Inc. and the Seven Network took legal action against iiNet, claiming that the ISP did nothing to stop its customers from sharing copyright media via BitTorrent.
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