Australian Courts state that ISP's are not Required to Police Pirates

[BonezOz]

From:

iiNet slays Hollywood in landmark piracy case

In a summary of his 200-page judgment read out in court this morning, Justice Cowdroy said the evidence established that iiNet had done no more than to provide an internet service to its users. He found that while iiNet had knowledge of infringements occurring and did not act to stop them, such findings did not necessitate a finding of authorisation.

He said an ISP such as iiNet provides a legitimate communication facility which is neither intended nor designed to infringe copyright. He said it was only by means of the application of the BitTorrent system that copyright infringements were enabled, but iiNet had no control over this system.

Personally, this was a long time coming. Suing an ISP over users pirating Movies and TV shows is like suing the electric and water companies over hydroponic crops. It just isn't right. I have heard that there will be an appeal, let's just hope it goes in the same direction that the original trial went.

I have a feeling that this case is going to produce a major ripple effect around the globe.

 

[InsaneNutter]

Its bad that the case even made it to court to be honest, great that the verdict was the right one though

A bit off topic but when i was doing an essay on Ecommerce for uni I read in a book that people who run a forum / blog or website that allows users to post content can't be held responsible for the content that users post on it. I don't know how true that is, I guess it depends on the laws of your country.

I would hope something similar applies to ISP's, the amount of data that must go though there network each day I would imagine its impossible to monitor in any effective way unless you are just looking at a select few users.