Foxtel preparing legal case to block piracy sites
Despite legislation passed in June, no company has yet sought to block overseas piracy sites.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under Subscription
Foxtel is preparing to launch a legal case “in the coming months” to have piracy-related websites like The Pirate Bay blocked from access in Australia.
The Pay TV Provider says it is currently receiving legal advice on “how best to put the legislation into effect” and expects to do so soon.
“Because these pirate sites do not exist in Australia, rights holders are not able to take direct legal action against them. Similar laws exists in Europe, the UK, Singapore and many other jurisdictions,” a spokesperson said.
“Foxtel and other rights holders are currently assessing what action can and should be taken to give effect to the legislation.”
But Laurie Patton from Internet Australia said, “We are astounded, given the urgency with which this law was passed at the urging of the rights holders, that so far they haven’t bothered to use it.
“We would have thought that they’d [rights holders] have a raft of cases ready to go if the [piracy] problem is that critical.
“Internet Australia is concerned at the tendency of the Government to rush to pass legislation that affects the internet without having any serious proof that it will do what they hope it will do.”
18 Responses
News Corp has issued instructions kill pirate bay ect, what a bunch of fools just because their wholly owned subsidiary Govt introduces censorship to save Rupes millions, all they will end up with is the big finger.
PS Both parties are as stupid as each other on this Conroy morphed into Turnbull and so one,bugger off boys
Lazy producers of these products make and distribute in such a way that is totally insecure. Their insecure content is also becoming so restrictive, it is costing more than what people can afford and this will compound as more insecure content finds its way into a myriad of pay for services that the average person can not afford all. Why are distributors blaming users who find insecure content for free? If they really want to ensure the end user pays for the content, they would release it in a form that was secure. The big movie distributors want tax payers, governments and other businesses to protect their work for them when it should be them doing it by supplying product in a secure form. Along with this, a lot of content is so hard to access and/or buy, people look for alternatives when they are not available any other way. These big lazy distributors risk consumer backlash if they…
You have a unique product that many people want. The moment that you make the 1st sale you have lost control of your product. To stay in business, the money from the 1st sale must cover your costs and give you a profit. Your customers pay in advance. When your money target has been reached, you open your door and send your customers the product. You then close the door and work on your next project. The fact that some of your customers will be re-selling your product for a profit should be of little concern. That is the nature of the beast. The time to be greedy has past. Too simplistic? There probably is another way…
Well in my opinion, this is great news. It is about time that honest people, who have to pay through the nose for content, are finally having the networks work with them. I am so sick of people stealing content and explaining it away as ‘someone else’s problem’. All you are, are thieving little buggers.
Once these web sights are blocked, Fast Tracking will slow to a crawl then will eventually stop! Remember it wasn’t competition between FTA Networks and Foxtel that bought in Fast Tracking it was people downloading!!!
This will be something to watch out for!
“Fast Tracking will slow to a crawl then will eventually stop!”
And that will cause even more downloading!
Foxtel has far more pressing issues such as giving Open Slather a mercy euthanization.
I wouldn’t be surprised it’s related to Live sport where websites are broadcasting AFL or other sports that are exclusively owned by Foxtel but are getting ripped off by these websites broadcasting their product and people watching that content instead of watching it through Foxtel.The amount of money paid to get exclusive coverage and people are ripping them off.Certainly not good.
Love that you put in the coming months in quotation marks David. Hilarious given we all know Foxtel’s time frames are often very loosely worded.
Defer to ABC link for that.
Maybe they need to lower their prices so more people will get Foxtel and bring shows they have the rights to, to us sooner. I know Foxtel does a really good job with high profile shows like Game of Thrones but there are so many other still not shown here until weeks if not months after the US/UK. And also work on bringing us more talk shows which do not air here like Conan and Kimmel.
… and the VPN I bought when this legislation was passed is working very well, thank you.
Mine is too, full speed with no slow down on my 100/40 NBN connection 🙂
Time to sign up!
And me. If the VPN companies weren’t behind this legislation they should have been. Their Australian subscriber numbers must have gone through the roof.
Rupert has spoken so Foxtel will get what they want. What right has Foxtel to tell me that I can’t download a book or a film that they do not have rights to, is out of print and no longer available commercially, or is in the Public Domain?
Not really surprising. Blocking sites isn’t very effective, new ones just pop up or people switch to Bittorrent. Lawyers are expensive so it costs more money than you save, especially in a small market like Australia.
Much better for them to make wildly inflated claims about the damages they suffer from piracy and the economic benefits from stopping it, then donate lots of money to politicians so they will swallow them and fix your problem at taxpayer’s expense.