Some of the leading film studios, including Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Disney Enterprises, Village Roadshow, and the Seven Network, are suing Australian ISP iiNet for failing to prevent piracy. They claim that iiNet is aware of the problem, but chooses to ignore it and to enforce its own terms and conditions which permit infringement upon their copyrighted material. “The ISP knows that there are a large number of customers who are engaging in continuing infringements of copyright by using BitTorrent file sharing technology,” said the studios in their claim.
“iiNet refused to address this illegal behaviour and did nothing to prevent the continuation of the infringements by the same customers,” added Adrianne Pecotic, executive director of the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT). “iiNet has an obligation under the law to take steps to prevent further known copyright infringement via its network.”
iiNet’s response accuses the movie studios of expecting them to do the impossible:
They send us a list of IP addresses and say 'this IP address was involved in a breach on this date'. We look at that say 'well what do you want us to do with this? We can't release the person's details to you on the basis of an allegation and we can't go and kick the customer off on the basis of an allegation from someone else'. So we say 'you are alleging the person has broken the law; we're passing it to the police. Let them deal with it'.
We are not traffic cops. We can't stand in the middle of it and stop the individual items that might be against the law. These guys are asking us to be judge, jury and executioner.
This isn’t the first time iiNet has spoken out against attempts to make ISPs filter content. When the Australian government introduced a radical initiative to force ISPs to use content censors last week, iiNet agreed in an attempt to collect data showing how ineffective the filters would be. “They're not listening to the experts, they're not listening to the industry, they're not listening to consumers, so perhaps some hard numbers will actually help.” said CEO Michael Malone. “Every time a kid manages to get through this filter, we'll be publicising it and every time it blocks legitimate content, we'll be publicising it.”
Malone thinks the studios are looking for someone to blame for their own inability to adapt to the changing market. “I think they genuinely believe that ISPs have a secret magic wand that we are hiding and if we bring it out we can make piracy disappear just by waving it,” he says.
Techdirt’s Mike Masnick agrees, saying, “Rather than admitting that they should change with the market, it's always someone else who needs to change to protect the entertainment industry's obsolete business model.” They go on to compare the incident to one that occurred over the summer when U2’s Bono blamed ISPs for the downfall of the music industry.
I think Masnick hit the nail on the head in his commentary. The film studios are being completely irrational, and if anyone is to blame for the failure of the industry, it’s them. It’s certainly not the ISP’s responsibility to monitor everything its customers do. In fact, it would frighten me if ISPs could play “judge, jury, and executioner,” as the CEO put it. Even passing on the studios’ complaints to the authorities may be crossing the line. I think that ISPs should simply remain neutral, and that more ISPs should follow iiNet’s lead in fighting back against those who try to force them to pick sides.
Source: Movie Studios Sue Australian ISP For Not Waving Magic Wand And Defeating Piracy
2 comments:
I think this is ridiculous, when will the industry take responsibility. They refuse to change their old ways to best suite the consumers.
Woah. That's really really ridiculous. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that most if not all of those companies are American, and yet they're expecting another nation/continent to follow their guidelines? A) The companies are not sections of the government and B) even if they were, they would not have the right to impose laws in other countries. This article makes me really angry. Also, just because America's government decided to get involved in the entertainment industry, it doesn't mean other countries' governments should be willing to do the same. The companies have no right to tell an internet service provider in another country how to run its company. They just want more money.
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