Court Gets A Torrent-full About Linux (Linux Journal) [LWN.net]

Linux Journal looks at an Australian legal case involving BitTorrent. "The matter at hand is a lawsuit by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft yes, that's AFACT against iiNet, an Australian internet service provider over the ISP's role in allowing its service to be used for illegal BitTorrent downloading. The basis for the case, according to trial coverage, is an earlier case concerning photocopies of print books which held that the University of New South Wales was liable for copyright infringement essentially because they controlled the copiers. AFACT hopes to use the same argument against iiNet, holding it liable for what goes through because it owns the tube."

(Log in to post comments)

Court Gets A Torrent-full About Linux (Linux Journal)

Posted Nov 5, 2009 16:18 UTC (Thu) by clugstj (subscriber, #4020) [Link]

"according to trial coverage"

Expecting the media to get the facts straight?

I don't think much of anything useful can be said about the case unless someone actually investigates it. The media certainly can't be trusted to do it.

Court Gets A Torrent-full About Linux (Linux Journal)

Posted Nov 5, 2009 18:36 UTC (Thu) by kerick (subscriber, #53036) [Link]

I think they should sue the power company too. Afterall, it was the power
company that "allowed" the ISP to use electricity to run a device or devices
which could potentially be used for copyright infringement. *sarcasm*

Court Gets A Torrent-full About Linux (Linux Journal)

Posted Nov 5, 2009 19:15 UTC (Thu) by csigler (subscriber, #1224) [Link]

One man's sarcasm is another man's insight....

Court Gets A Torrent-full About Linux (Linux Journal)

Posted Nov 9, 2009 13:13 UTC (Mon) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link]

They could end up trying to sue the sun, if they follow that chain of causation. I'm not sure how that would work, short of shaking one's fist at it.

Being Australia, it's not like the power is going to come directly from the sun, however, given the country's apparent heavy dependence on fossil fuels. This seems bizarre to us outsiders who consider Australia to have quite a generous helping of sunshine.

Court Gets A Torrent-full About Linux (Linux Journal)

Posted Nov 5, 2009 20:06 UTC (Thu) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link]

This case isn't some Australian peculiarity. Australia pretty much adopted the US's DMCA and this case is a all-out attempt to render the Safe Harbour provisions ineffective (the provisions protect ISPs and social media websites from unlicensed actions of their users). If it succeeds you'll see the case re-run in each DMCA-like jurisdiction.

I don't really understand why AFACT is doing this. Telecommunications is many times more important to the Australian economy and culture than music and films. ISPs and telco and websites can't operate without some sort of safe harbour and AFACT had a better deal with the adoption of the US DMCA via the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement than if the Commonwealth Parliament had considered the copyright bargain on its merits. A legal success would lead to a legislative reconsideration of the copyright bargain, putting AFACT in a worse position.

Court Gets A Torrent-full About Linux (Linux Journal)

Posted Nov 6, 2009 1:06 UTC (Fri) by PaulWay (✭ supporter ✭, #45600) [Link]

> I don't really understand why AFACT is doing this.

It's quite simple really. Greed.

From their (IMO warped) point of view it makes perfect sense to hit the slow-moving targets - the ISPs - instead of trying to track down the fast-moving targets - their customers. If they can avoid having to go through any court process and just make allegations about copyright infringements and have the ISPs forced to act on that, then that's a sweet business model: just keep on accusing people of copying stuff and sooner or later everyone will be kicked off the internet and forced back to buying their CDs and DVDs again.

We all know that this is stupid (because people will just share stuff in other ways). We all know that there's a much better business model in the media companies actually giving people the stuff they want to get in an easy, cheap and safe way. But to the old Procrustean business model, everything else must be made to fit their way of distributing their wares.

Have fun,

Paul

Theft Is Theft?

Posted Nov 7, 2009 10:03 UTC (Sat) by ldo (subscriber, #40946) [Link]

The reason for the court case is that AFACT feels iiNet hasnt been doing enough to keep filesharers off. What has happened is that, when they submit their accusations, the ISP has simply been passing them on to the police.

But at the same time, they insist on referring to copyright infringement as theft. But theft is a criminal, not a civil matter. So why shouldnt the ISP pass such things on to the police? Using their usual shoplifter analogy, since when was it enough simply to ban them from the store? You dob them in to the cops.

Posted Nov 9, 2009 7:29 UTC (Mon) by krp (guest, #4866) [Link]

I find it somewhat annoying to find even LWN using phrases like "illegal Bittorrent downloading" which tends to imply that using Bittorrent is illegal in and of itself - which it is NOT! The illegal act here is copyright infringement - not the use of the Bittorrent protocol. As many Linux users are well aware, Bittorrent protocol has legitamate uses, including the downloading of Linux distro's themselves. Articles which incorrectly paint Bittorrent itself as an "illegal activity" are an incentive for ISP's to ban the use of Bittorrent entirely, thus blocking the legitamate uses as well!

Posted Nov 9, 2009 14:33 UTC (Mon) by jake (editor, #205) [Link]

> I find it somewhat annoying to find even LWN using phrases like "illegal
> Bittorrent downloading"

That was a quote from the article that we just reproduced as part of the blurb. When we point to various things, it doesn't mean we endorse what they say, just that we think our readers might be interested.

jake