Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Disney Enterprises, Inc. and the Seven Network took iiNet to court in the hope that a judge would find the ISP responsible for the copyright infringements of its customers.

Judge Justice Dennis Cowdroy shattered that dream and iiNet won its landmark case. Quickly AFACT announced it would appeal the judgment which it said had left an “unworkable environment for content creators and content providers” and represented “a serious threat to Australia’s digital economy.”

Its now being reported that beginning on August 2nd and running for the next 4 days, the appeal will be heard by a full bench of the Federal Court. The time allocated is a dramatic reduction over the month long saga of the first hearing.

“We go into this latest legal round anticipating we will come out in an even stronger position than when we won in February,” iiNet chief Michael Malone told The Australian.

AFACT’s appeal will consist of 15 areas where they believe original case judge Justice Cowdroy got his decision wrong, but even if the Federal Court agrees, Malone believes an AFACT victory would be a hollow one.

“Neither the original case nor this latest appeal will stop piracy — even if in the unlikely event they won the appeal,” he concludes.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

However, under the AFACT umbrella, Hollywood lost its most prominent case against ISP iiNet after the court decided that the ISP was not responsible for the infringements of its subscribers.

Despite being ordered to pay all costs, AFACT announced it would not only go back to court in an attempt to avoid paying them, it would also appeal the entire decision, claiming that the judge was wrong on just about every point.

This stubborn attitude hasn’t gone down well, with many observers openly criticizing Hollywood’s bullish stance and insisting it should accept defeat graciously. But of course, that’s not going to happen. After all, what could they do having failed to force ISPs to carry the can? Start suing file-sharers RIAA-style?

Worryingly, an AFACT spokeswoman quoted in a News.com.au article this morning (which has since inexplicably disappeared), said the anti-piracy group now has that armageddon option under consideration. She claimed they are yet to make a final decision.

In the meantime it’s back to the old FUD strategy to try and scare people away from file-sharing networks.

“If you’re using (torrents) (we) can see every movie you want, everyone who is sharing it and everyone who has it on their hard drive,” said the AFACT spokeswoman. “It’s very public what you do and as copyright holders we have a third-party company that is mining all that information and sending it to Internet Service Providers,” she added.

Well that’s not going to scare iiNet customers very much is it?

Nevertheless, AFACT claims there are a number of things ISPs can do to stop piracy, including banning access to torrent sites. Thing is, generally they aren’t, and with this latest iiNet decision there is even less incentive for ISPs to send out warnings or even temporarily suspend accounts, as shown by Exetel which recently reversed its policy.

But there are other ways to encourage reductions in piracy. You don’t have to sue ISPs, spread FUD or imply that suing end users is an option under consideration. Instead of being aggressive towards customers, why not try to pull them onside?

The Intellectual Property Awareness Foundation (IPAF) was created to “promote the value of the industry by raising awareness, understanding and appreciation of intellectual property, and its role and value in society.” In other words, this is a more outwardly friendly anti-piracy group that aims to educate and persuade rather than deal the traditional death-by-lawyer.

Today IPAF announced the appointment of a new CEO, ex-Sony and Fox director Gail Grant who will lead the organization “to motivate a change in public attitude away from piracy” and “encourage supporting the more than 50,000 people employed in all aspects of the industry through the enjoyment of original and legitimate film and television experiences.”

Fair enough. Persuading the public is certainly better than beating them into submission. But there is a problem. While IPAF plays softly-softly with its consumer friendly image, its main sponsors are doing completely the opposite. In case you’re wondering, those sponsors are AFACT and the MPA.

As earlier pointed out by iiNet chief Michael Malone and countless others, the best way to combat piracy is to make movie and TV content available online readily and cheaply. Maybe the studios could get together and create a new group with a CEO dedicated to that, instead of spending money on all of these other good-cop/bad-cop groups with conflicting messages.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Disney Enterprises, Inc. and the Seven Network took iiNet to court, claiming that the ISP did nothing to stop its customers from sharing copyright media via BitTorrent and was therefore liable for their infringements.

Judge Justice Dennis Cowdroy disagreed, and handed a huge victory to iiNet.

Today marked the deadline for AFACT to appeal the decision and as expected, they did just that.

In a statement the anti-piracy group said there were good grounds to appeal a judgment which it is dramatically claiming has left an “unworkable environment for content creators and content providers and represents a serious threat to Australia’s digital economy.”

AFACT boss Neil Gane said the judgment conflicted with established copyright law in Australia.

“The court found large scale copyright infringements, that iiNet knew they were
occurring, that iiNet had the contractual and technical capacity to stop them and iiNet did nothing about them,” he said. “In line with previous case law, this would have amounted to authorization of copyright infringement.”

Gane went on to state that the ruling rendered so-called ’safe harbor’ provisions of copyright ineffective. “If this decision stands, the ISPs have all the protection without any of the responsibility,” he said.

AFACT’s appeal, filed with the Fedral Court today, consists of 15 areas where they believe Justice Cowdroy got it wrong. An analysis of the appeal grounds can be found here.

Chief of iiNet, Michael Malone, said Justice Cowdroy’s judgment was unequivocal and the company is confident the Court will stand by its original ruling, noting that more legal proceedings will not provide a solution.

“It is more than disappointing and frustrating that the studios have chosen this unproductive path,” Mr Malone said in a statement. “This legal case has not stopped one illegal download and further legal appeals will not stop piracy.

“The studios themselves admitted during the court hearings that making content freely and cheaply available online was an effective way to combat piracy. People are crying out to access the studios materials, so much so some are prepared to steal it. A more effective approach would be for the studios to make their content more readily and cheaply available online,” notes Malone.

Upon losing the original trial, AFACT was ordered to pay iiNet’s legal costs, revealed to be $5.7 million ($5.08 million USD). Earlier this week AFACT said it will return to court in order to avoid paying some of the costs.

The appeal hearing for the original case is likely be held this year and according to iiNet’s Michael Malone, it should take up significantly fewer days than first time around.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The studios it represents, Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Disney Enterprises, Inc. and the Seven Network took legal action against iiNet, claiming that the ISP did nothing to stop its customers from sharing copyright media via BitTorrent.

As part of the defeat, AFACT was ordered to pay iiNet’s legal costs, recently revealed to be a staggering $5.7 million ($5.08 million USD). Despite the ruling, AFACT says it will now return to court to avoid paying some of the costs. The anti-piracy group says that even though the final verdict went against them, elements of the trial went in their favor, so they believe they should not have to pay iiNet for defending those parts.

One area of claim was highlighted by AFACT spokesperson Rebecca Tabakoff, who said that early on in the trial iiNet conceded that its customers did indeed share copyright material, despite earlier claims they did not.

“[iiNet] spent a lot of time in the lead up to the trial not conceding that their customers had infringed copyright. The judge awarded all costs against applicants but iiNet was not successful on all fronts,” she explained.

Tabakoff indicated that AFACT would present other arguments to see if costs could be recouped elsewhere.

iiNet managing director Michael Malone believes that since AFACT lost the case, they should pay the costs.

“We didn’t ask to be sued. They came to us and sued us and they lost, so I don’t see why we should be paying any of their legal expenses,” Malone told ZDNet.

Malone says that money spent on legal action would be better off spent serving customers better.

“I look at the amount of money we have spent on litigation, and no doubt there would have been a lot more [spent] by the studios. Think of what that could have been spent on if it was applied to online content instead.”

This attempt by AFACT to challenge the instruction to pay iiNet’s legal costs will be heard on February 25th, the same day by which it must appeal the original ruling in order to take it to the High Court.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Last year several studios including Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Disney Enterprises, Inc. and the Seven Network took legal action against iiNet, claiming that the ISP did nothing to stop its customers from sharing copyright media via BitTorrent.

The ISP refuted the claim with a multi-layered defense, which was heard then adjourned in November 2009.

Passing his verdict today, Justice Cowdroy ruled that while the studio’s copyrights had indeed been infringed upon, iiNet did not authorize the copyright infringing activities of its subscribers and therefore the ISP could not be held responsible.

Notably, Justice Cowdroy said that iiNet had no control over BitTorrent networks and the ISP was covered under so-called “safe harbor” provisions.

“It is impossible to conclude that iiNet has authorised copyright infringement … [iiNet] did not have relevant power to prevent infringements occurring,” Justice Cowdroy said in his judgment.

AFACT had insisited during the original court case that iiNet should forward copyright infringement warnings to its customers on behalf of AFACT members, but the judge ruled that this was not the way copyright infringements should be handled.

Electronic Frontiers Australia said the outcome of the case was the “application of common sense” and Pirate Party Australia also welcomed the decision.

“This is a good decision by Justice Cowdroy, and reflects that there is no legal basis or obligation for any ISP to act in the interest of copyright holders, or to expect that they should disconnect any entity upon allegation of infringement without judicial oversight and due process,” said Rodney Serkowski, Party Secretary.

“Essentially an ISP should be considered similar to the postal service – they simply carry data in the form of packets, and that communication should be considered private,” he added.

In a statement, iiNet said it had “never supported or encouraged breaches of the law, including infringement of the Copyright Act of the Telecommunications Act,” adding that the company had always been a “good corporate citizen and an even better copyright citizen.”

After the huge distraction of this prolonged legal battle, iiNet said it would now like to get on with business, adding that it looks forward to working with the entertainment industry to make content available legally to reduce illicit file-sharing.

AFACT executive director, Neil Gane, said his group was extremely disappointed with the Court’s ruling.

“Today’s decision is a set back for the 50,000 Australians employed in the film industry,” he said in a statement.

“But we believe this decision was based on a technical finding centered on the Court’s interpretation of the how infringements occur and the ISPs’ ability to control them. We are confident that the Government does not intend a policy outcome where rampant copyright infringement is allowed to continue unaddressed and unabated via the iiNet network,” he added.

AFACT will have to pay all of iiNet’s substantial legal costs. Thus far, the group has declined to confirm whether it will appeal the Court’s decision.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.