Copyright

[time]

Movie Studios lose case against Australian ISP. Two courts down, one to go.

I see that the studios went for straight entrapment while 'gathering evidence' against ISP customers. That is, they wanted action against people who took the 'stolen' stuff that the studio employees offered them.

 

[Chewy509]

W00t, for common sense!

As far as I see it, an ISP is a carrier of a telecommunication service and shouldn't be responsible if they someone else doesn't like the message being sent...

I also like to see it this way, can a telco (eg Telstra) be held responsible if someone uses their network to organise and partake in an illegal activity? Can Australia Post or any other courier service be held responsible if illegal bootleg copies of DVDs are mailed through their systems?

Anyway, with my ISP, they do have a clause that if you are found guilty in a court of law to be using your connection for illegal activity (such as downloading movies, music, etc), they reserve the right to cancel your connection. As to whether they may report your activity to the copyright holder, is a different matter, but some may see this as a breach of privacy...

 

[BingBangBop]

In my world view there is nothing on the internet that is private unless it is encrypted. If you put it out there, then someone can read it. It is no different than doing whatever in a public park where anyone can see what you are doing.

If a cop see's you doing something illegal, then he/she has an obligation to stop it but the average private citizen is not. A person can choose to get involved (and get sued because no good deed goes unpunished), but if they choose not to there is no penalty.

If an ISP is logging and explicitly monitoring for illegal activity on their network, then they may have an obligation to interfere though. Just like a copy shop not paying attention to someone using their color copiers to make counterfeit money. There is a big difference in obligation if they see someone doing it on their machines and if they don't. As long as the ISP doesn't monitor, log or otherwise pay attention to the content of the traffic then they are fine for then they are just being used and not actively participating.

One can't blame all p2p or bit-torrent traffic on illegal activities. So just because there is that kind of traffic does not prove anything. The ISP would have to know the specifics of what is being traded. If someone contacts the ISP and accuses specific people the ISP has no duty for there is no proof. Anyone may accuse anyone else and self-constructed documents does not prove anything. Now if the ISP has independent logs showing the activity, then that is something the ISP probably would have to act upon.

 

[Mercutio]

A very interesting thing has happened in the USA.

Porn companies started filing massive John Doe suits against downloaders, shopping them to venues where one might reasonably assume there is a lower level of technical sophistication among members of the court, liked West Virginia.

The interesting thing is this: When confronted with hundreds or thousands of requests for personal information based on IP address on behalf on porn companies, US ISPs have responded that the requests are too burdensome to quickly return and have instead offered to look up at most ten names a day. The courts, it turns out, don't want to adjudicate these suits against anonymous defendants or wait months for ISPs to return personal information for people who probably don't live where the suits were filed and have thus ruled that all future suits have to be filed individually and separately. These are also the first court rulings I'm aware of that suggest that any part of the US legal system understands that an IP address is not a human being.

This might not stop the MPAA or RIAA from pursuing legal action against a downloader, but $300 filing costs per defendant are actually a significant barrier to dissuade porn companies and it has established a precedent that mass litigation against downloaders isn't a practical answer for media companies of any sort.