Yes Minister, industry wants tougher piracy laws.
Following its court loss, AFACT is considering its appeal options, but attention also swings to Senator Conroy ahead of likely calls for legislative change.
- Published by David Knox
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After yesterday’s ruling that internet service providers could not be held responsible for the conduct of their subscribers, film studios are now considering new methods of combating piracy.
The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft has 21 days to decide whether to appeal.
Much attention will now swing to the reaction from the government. In July last year, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said he was awaiting the outcome of the iiNet case before deciding whether there was a need for legislative change. Yesterday, his spokeswoman said the government would examine the decision before making any further comment, but in April last year he commented that iiNet’s defence in the case ”belongs in a Yes Minister episode”.
The studios are likely to lobby the government to change the law to force ISPs to be liable for the downloading habits of customers.
”We are confident that the government will not support a policy outcome which allows for the copyright infringement to continue unabated,” says AFACT executive director Neil Gane.
Conroy is already facing a consumer campaign over his internet-filtering policy, ahead of a Federal Election.
Film studios may yet consider suing individuals for downloading. Last week a lawsuit against a US music downloader saw his $US1.92 million fine for downloading and sharing 24 songs cut to $US54,000 on appeal. The Recording Industry Association of America ended the practice of suing individuals in 2008 after bad publicity for the lawsuits, which included suing a 10-year-old girl.
Source: The Age, Courier Mail
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16 Responses
Who votes the politicians in AFACT or the public. The biggest deterrent to priracy is for the media companies to deliver content in a suitable format, allowing reasonable use for a reasonable price (the carrot rather than the stick approach against their customers).
I think it’s crazy for ISP to have to police use – phone companies don’t monitor conversations for breaches of the law, Aust post doesn’t open every package for illegal content, photocopy companies aren’t fined for illegal photocopies by publishers.
I’m not even sure why copyright is an issue here. It’s about how it is policed. AFACT should do it’s own dirty work in plain view of the public.
Conroy is destroying Labors chances this year (more than abbot is the libs), Libs would do well to promote their anti-conroy (unless said person is worse, which is always possible knowing them).
@John out West – Fawlty Towers $75/13 eps = $5.77 per 30min episode is exorbitant. I bought the older FT box set for less than half that price. This ‘remastering and re-release for megabucks because it’s 10% better’ doesn’t suck me in.
@bindi – I’m an Apple fanboy and AppleTV owner. But I won’t buy overpriced DRM’d iTunes content. TV series are normally $3 an episode. Doesn’t matter if they are 60mins or 20mins. And then I also have to pay my ISP so I can d’load it. That’s why I prefer to wait and buy the DVDs. Or if DVDs aren’t released here I regularly fly to the US and Britain to obtain them. Or I get ’em via eBay.
@payne – I’m a long time Labor voter too. And I hate what they’re doing to our internet. But the Libs will most likely do the same thing because there’s great political value in eradicating child porn. And since Conroy has made the link between a filter and child porn no politician of any persuasion will ever go against that. It’d be political suicide to ‘appear’ to support child porn.
@Garion – Support the Pirate Party? How much influence will a bunch of twenty-something nerds that support crime get? That’s got to be a wasted vote. And I know they don’t support crime but that’s the perception as per AFACT, ARIA and RIAA advertising.
Some people are just living in la la land. Even if everything that was shown in the US and UK was avaliable here in Oz the same day or the next, you will always have a group of people who will still download stuff because they are too cheap to pay for it.
If torrents are the issue, then add every Torrent site to ACMA list, and legislate that all ISP’s are to block access to software.
Oh God. Knowing Conroy this will be yet another thing added to the Internet Censorship program. China here we come!
Look at something like the remastered Fawlty Towers boxed set.Thirteen half hour episodes 30+ years old and they want $75 dollars.If DVDs were a reasonable price instead of the normal exorbitant rip-off the vast majority of people would not spend the time and effort illegally downloading from the Internet.
Can’t we just send him back to England where he comes from?
KevUN Krudd and this idiot Conroy must be stopped. Take a look at the amount Conroy has wasted on the national broadband fiasco, add his internet sensorship and now the prospect of this new legislation and things don’t look too good for Australian weeerking families.
The only way ISPs are going to force consumers to not DL is to lower data limits at a time when the rest of the developed world already has unlimited downloads for far cheaper rates so this will not attract international business as there online cost will go up.
Apart from suing every person who has ever downloaded a movie or TV show (and tying up the courts up for years) maybe it’s about time they do like the record companies did a few years back and join the online world. Make it so people want to DL the real and better copies for a small fee, it’s worked for Apple the iTunes music store so why not make it affordable for movies?
As for blocking BT sites well many businesses use them for legitimate file transfer now, blocking them will have an effect worst than any filter.
Who the hell put this communist party in power in this country?? I’ve had it with this insane government in Australia!
if we had access to the same movies and shows in the australian itunes store that they do in the american one plenty of people would pay for the content just for the ease of access, steady and fast download speed, reliability and safety from viruses. but the discrimination based on location is what causes a lot of problems, people just want access to the same stuff that america has, when america has it. when there is no legal avenue for obtaining the content that is when people resort to illegal means. although the prices should be lowered a bit, an episode here or there is ok but a whole season can cost more than the dvd set, the prices do become prohibitive.
@kover – or you could vote for the Pirate Party (here’s hoping they get organised before the next election)
@ payne – if that happens I’m going to vote liberal for the first time in my life,this from a die hard left winger..not that the libs are any better but i want to help send a message that this crap won’t be tolerated. If it meant kicking out a labor govt so be it and they’d deserve it.
There is no need to worry. With the Governments new mandatory web filter, you will see Torrent sites quietly added to the list of “undesirable” sites and the ability to actually download anything will become a thing of the past.
The last thing anyone needs is Nanny Conroy to get involved
Here’s a radical idea. How about they stop suing everything that moves, and actually adjusting their system to fit the future of media sharing? They’re still being stick-in-the-mud resistant idiots over the unavoidable and global changes and their antiquated greed-based system is falling apart around their ears, resulting in absurd levels of desperation. It’s pathetic, and I hope it kills their stupid practices off.