Internet provider clear of film TV piracy claims in High Court
An internet provider has won a long running court case against a group of film and television companies.
ISP company iiNet has won the High Court appeal case which draws a close to three years of legal wranglings between the company and a group of 34 international and Australian companies including the Seven Network, Warner Bros and Disney.
The group argued that iiNet was allowing customers to download movies and TV shows through their service, infringing on the companies copyright.
The companies had argued that iiNet had the power to prevent its customers from infringing copyright by issuing warnings and suspending or terminating customer accounts.
However, following the decision, Michael Malone iiNet CEO said: “Today’s High Court five-nil ruling confirms that iiNet is not liable for ‘authorising’ the conduct of its customers who engaged in online copyright infringement.”
A statement by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft reads: “Today’s decision by the High Court exposes the failure of copyright law to keep pace with the online environment and the need for Government to act, leading film and television industry companies said following the announcement of the decision.”
The appeal follows on from the Federal Court hearing in February 2011, in a case that has being going for three years.
In September, Gail Grant CEO of the Intellectual Property Awareness Foundation told Encore following a survey with internet users: “They found the ISPs as enablers of piracy.”
Grant said: “From both 2009 and 2011, 72% of respondents said they would stop if they were told they were in breach of their conditions and 74% would stop if they were suspended. People are looking to ISPs for guidance.”
Malone said: “We have consistently said we are eager to work with the studios to make their very desirable material legitimately available to a waiting customer base – and that offer remains the same today.”
Legal costs for the entire case stand at $9m.
‘In September, Gail Grant CEO of the Intellectual Property Awareness Foundation told Encore following a survey with internet users: “They found the ISPs as enablers of piracy.”
Grant said: “From both 2009 and 2011, 72% of respondents said they would stop if they were told they were in breach of their conditions and 74% would stop if they were suspended. People are looking to ISPs for guidance.”’
We need those who represent these 72% of respondents, i.e. government, to step up and create laws which will prevent this theft from occurring even though internet businesses are unmoved that they abet this piracy.
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Really over these “infringed companies” continous whinging about the billions they claim their losing thru piracy – reckon its time they got with the www times & got serious with these people (fought fire with fire). Employ half a dozen nerd hackers on a 6 months contract – stick em in a rooom with internet capabiity – & let em do their thing – like shooting fish in a barrel…
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This is really bad news for Oz Producers.
Enabling piracy to flourish in Australia will hurt distributors (particularly the smaller non studio distributors), who will therefore make a lot less money. Ultimately this means a less dollars will flow to Producers and they will need to cut budgets even more.
It’s time for the Government to take action. Hopefully Screen Australia and SPAA can work together on some sort of proposal to protect copyright and reduce piracy.
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Louis CK did quite a clever thing. He just offered his latest DVD for $5, directly on his site to download. He said feel free to pirate it, but don’t be an asshole, the money will go directly to me – not a big faceless entertainment company.
And within 2-3 days, he’d made well over a million dollars.
Not bad for a comedian, huh?
The real issue is Australians have been getting robbed blind. And the more difficult people make it to purchase legal content, for a reasonable price overseas, the more likely people are going to download something when it comes out, not 14 months later, for free.
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When will people in the industry work out that there is no such offense as copyright ‘piracy’?
Piracy involves, well, pirates.
What we are talking about are copyright breaches – the unlawful copying and redistribution of copywritten works.
The solution has been there all along…
1) release material on a timely basis in easy to purchase formats
2) reduce price gorging (digital product has little additional overheads to justify the price premiums in Australia)
3) clarify the difference between purchasing and licensing a product or service. When I buy a car I can do whatever I like with that car without the permission of the car company. I can drive it on any roads, remodel it, lend it to my friends, drive it in front of crowds, even resell it. I can even buy older cars from third parties anywhere in the world and remodel and drive them without the permission of the car maker or distributor!
However when I license music, I am restricted in how I may listen to it or distribute it, I may not lend it, play it in front of crowds, remix it and show this off publicly, I definitely cannot resell it – and I can only buy it if a publisher is willing to sell it to me in my country, at the time they are willing to sell it).
This difference between licensing and owning isn’t clear to people – they ‘buy’ music – and retailers ‘sell’ music/movies/books – when actually the transaction is between a licensor and licensee. Under the current publishing company model people rarely, if ever, actually ‘buy’ music – but people don’t recognise the difference between the music and a car.
The publishing industry needs to resolve this mental dissonance in consumers in one of two ways – education or modification of their business model. And they need to recognise that ‘distribution’ is no longer a value-add service in most situations and does not comAnd the premiums as it did through much of the 20th century.
If furniture makers can sell direct to the public anywhere in the world, what is stopping content producers? Not practicalities – mindset.
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Well said Craig. I suspect most of this comes from the useless middle men in the entertainment industry. The ones that used to command the other 97% of what artists made.
As an artist, iTunes isn’t the greatest model – but anyone with a bit of marketing smarts can do away with the record company altogether, which is a great thing. When it comes to film I understand the ball game is different, chiefly from the investment that goes into a film to produce it.
The fact is criminals will always be one step ahead of the law – law is always reactive, not proactive, in dealing with crime. Film needs to realise the game has changed, and charging $27 for a digital download of your product through iTunes may not be the best way to do things. Especially when Aussies can buy the DVD / blueray on amazon from the US for $5.99
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Good to see common sense winning out – if companies were made liable for their customer’s wrong doings we can only guess at the chaos that could cause. Would Telstra be responsible for organised crime? Holden for supplying a bank robber’s getaway vehicle?
If AFACT want to get to the bottom of ‘piracy’ in Australia they need look no further than the way their industry treated Australian consumers for the past 30 years – price gouging, region blocking, delayed release dates…
The entertainment industry have been given an incredible gift – a distribution method that reaches all corners of the globe at virtually no cost, but they insist on doing business the old-fashioned way. Give people what they want at a reasonable price point and the ‘problem’ will vanish.
Australian consumers live in the 21st Century. The days of charging $30+ for a little plastic disc are long gone.
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Piracy is a service issue.
Offer a better service than the pirates (Steam, Netflix, Spotify), and you’ll clean up.
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@Dean
“….who will therefore make a lot less money…..”
They SHOULD make a lot less money, they are defunct. Physical distributors are nothing but parasites on what should be a digital only model.
Ice-carters, scribe monks, blacksmiths, the bloke who drove the night-soil cart, all lost their professions to innovation. Time to look for a new profession.
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The oatmeal summed it up perfectly a couple of months back.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones
You might have to just paste the link. But it perfectly encapsulates the problem. i.e Piracy isn’t the problem it’s the studios and their outdated command and control structure when it comes to global distribution…
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AFACT continues to live in the past and miss the point.
Provide content in a timely manner, in the options the consumer demands and at a competitive pricepoint and illegal file sharing will decline (yes, it’s not called piracy).
Whilst ever they continue to gouge consumers on price in the cinema and drag their feet on the right distribution models for content in retail “free” will always be more attractive.
Also, Hulu?
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Forget about DVDs. The future is digital downloads via VID platforms like iTunes, Bigpond, Foxtel, MUBI etc. The problem filmmakers will find is these companies will not deal with them. They would rather deal directly with content aggregators and distributors who have a large enough catalog. Dealing film by film with producers is a logistical nightmare. Yes, there are some sites out there who do it but, in the past, many of these have failed here in Australia and gone broke. They had the wrong model. To make any money from VOD which is minimal now but improving, you need the exposure and muscle of the bigger VOD platforms. There will always be people who illegally download films even when there are legal alternatives but you don;t your film going to them as they are a minority when compared to the vast population of the nation. You need mainstream acceptance and exposure to make any real money on VOD.
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Goodness me. Equating a digital download of a song that costs a couple of bucks with buying a car. How odd.
What seems to have eluded many people (and sticking with the car analogy) is that the car is sold to a single person and (may) in it’s lifetime be re-sold even several times.
The car is not DUPLICATED and re-distributed to millions who gain full-benefit from the duplication, and effectively pay nothing to the car manufacturer. If that were the case that ‘Adam’ or ‘Eve’ car would have had an astronomical price-tag, never been sold, ergo no copies made.
The point is that a ‘fair’ remuneration (‘fair’ to be determined somehow) needs to flow to the originator/creator of the work or product for EACH AND EVERY COPY of that work that is distributed. Any system that fails this sense test is flawed. It appears with the current system9s) that the distributor (i.e. the one who facilitates the duplication and distribution of the copy), either does so illegally (i.e. zero remuneration to the creator) or legally – in which case they pocket an inordinately high proportion of the transaction price.
At risk here is the big dollars funding that original content creators invest UP-FRONT that ensures that original content is produced, unless the back-end revenue trail starts to pay its way as well.
I am sure it can be resolved, unless the “damn them all, it’s our right to download any and all content for free” mindset is maintained.
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Henry Ford, you’re making the same point as Craig. There’s a difference between licensing music and buying a car, and ‘distribution’ costs in online world are not justified,
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