studios
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 »Piracy Isn’t Killing The Movie Industry, Greed Is
First off, we have to make it clear that the major movie studios are doing great at the box-office, despite movie piracy riding at an all-time high. Other parts of the movie industry, such as video rental outlets, do seem to struggle and they have the studios to thank for this, not piracy. In January of this year Warner Bros.
Continue reading »Judge blames RealNetworks for DVD-ripping ban
Snuffs antitrust claims against Hollywood A US district judge has rejected RealNetworks’ argument that Hollywood studios illegally joined forces to block the sale of its DVD-duplicating software, RealDVD.…
Continue reading »Court Refuses To Order Shutdown of OpenBitTorrent
Earlier this year a new BitTorrent tracker was launched. Due to its public nature, OpenBitTorrent (OBT) was seen by some as a possible replacement for The Pirate Bay tracker, which has recently closed down for good. OpenBitTorrent is merely a tracker, carries no .torrent files and also operates a full DMCA-style notice and takedown policy.
Continue reading »AFACT v iiNet: Safe Harbor Protection Intact, Says iiNet
The trial continues in the copyright infringement case of AFACT – representing several Hollywood studios – and Aussie ISP iiNet (multiple links to all our earlier coverage can be found here and here and here ) The case continued in the Federal Court, with iiNet barrister Richard Cobden beginning his closing submissions. Referring to the allegations by AFACT that it detected around 97,000 instances of copyright infringement carried out by iiNet subscribers, Cobden said that there was actually only sufficient evidence to prove that a single subscriber had carried out any. That individual was the mole planted by AFACT and DtecNet to carry out deliberate ‘infringements’ on behalf of the plaintiffs.
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