The giants of the film industry have lost their appeal in a lawsuit against ISP iiNet in a landmark judgment handed down in the Federal Court today.

The appeal dismissed today had the potential to impact internet users and the internet industry profoundly as it sets a legal precedent surrounding how much ISPs are required to do to prevent customers from downloading movies and other content illegally.

The film studios had sued iiNet arguing that, by not acting to prevent illegal file sharing on its network, it was essentially “authorising” the activity.
[snip]
iiNet chief executive, Michael Malone, said the case had so far cost his company $6.5 million. “All this legal action hasn’t stopped one customer from [illegally] downloading in Australia,” Mr Malone said said outside court this afternoon.

“We urge the Australian film industry to address the growing demand for studio content to be delivered in a timely and cost effective manner to consumers and we remain eager to work with them to make this material available legitimately,” he said in a statement.

Amen




  1. Mac Guy says:

    Australia has a film industry?

  2. sargasso_c says:

    Those wacky, Australopithians.

  3. jim says:

    I’m in love.

  4. MikeN says:

    So why would people pay $5 for a movie or $1 if it is available for free download?

    Why would a studio pay $200 million to make a movie or $40 million if they can only get the movie theater sales (half to the theaters) and the sale of 1 DVD?

  5. Uncle Patso says:

    People still buy lots of DVDs and BlueRay discs, even those with broadband connections. I’ve heard, though I haven’t independently confirmed it, that studios make about half their income from such sales. The ever-shorter time between theatrical release and release on disc shows the studios are placing even more importance on disc releases. The runaway success of NetFlix, Amazon’s streaming service, iTunes, Hulu, etc. shows that not everyone is into piracy. It’s very hard to determine what actual monetary losses from piracy are because the industries exaggerate them so much. I suspect it’s between 1% and 25% of claims.

    Nice to see an Australian court show some sense. The Aussies seemed to be headed rapidly in the other direction lately, i.e., toward state-sponsored net censorship.

  6. skunkman62 says:

    what are you people talking about? was there an article with that hot pic?

  7. honeyman says:

    #5 UP

    The aussie govt are totally on the side of the corporates, as you would expect. Seems that the courts haven’t been totally bought off yet.

  8. deowll says:

    ER, what are the limits on bandwidth and amount you are allowed to download in OZ?

    I may be confabulating something or maybe things have changed but I thought this was one of those you can’t download much here places.

    Are high def video downloads full 1080p there? If not those who want the best will go for blue ray.

  9. CrankyGeeksFan says:

    Is this Australian decision legally binding in the United States? Will the studios or governments try to enforce this on internet backbone providers or webhost companies like Square space?

    #5 Uncle Patso – Plunging DVD sales are dragging down earnings at media companies as is in the case with Viacom’s, owner of Paramount, last quaterly report. To combat piracy, Warner Brothers was going to release a DVD in China the same day as a film’s theatrical release in the US. Definitely by 2004, the studios’ strategy was that the theatrical release was in a sense a “giant promotion” for the DVD sales release.

    Another problem for studios is that a lot of profit was being made by releasing DVDs of films – or TV series for that matter – that were made decades before, i.e. Hawaii Five-O box sets, etc. The DVD sales figures don’t reflect current theatrical releases. The same problem happened to the music recording industry in the 1990s has box sets of recording artists were sold along with CD re-releases of many albums. In other words, that purchasing boom has run its course.


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