7Juicer

There was a landmark decision today in the Federal Court surrounding file sharing. Here is the crux of the case:
The suit against iiNet was filed in November 2008 by a group of the biggest Hollywood studio including Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox and Disney, as well as the Seven Network.

They claimed iiNet was liable for ‘‘authorising’’ copyright infringement on its network because it did not warn or disconnect offending customers when repeatedly notified of the infringements by the movie studios.

The studios had hired an online investigator firm to intercept BitTorrent traffic over 59 weeks and record instances of iiNet users downloading pirated movies.

iiNet argued that it was not required by law to act on ‘‘mere allegations’’ of copyright infringement, that customers were innocent until proven guilty in court, and that the case was like suing the electricity company for things people do with their electricity.

But during the trial iiNet’s managing director Michael Malone conceded that the notices provided by the movie studios presented “compelling evidence” of copyright infringement by iiNet customers.

However, iiNet’s legal counsel, Richard Cobden, said privacy provisions in the Telecommunications Act prevented it from forwarding the studios’ infringement notices to customers.

He said iiNet was also protected under Safe Harbour provisions of the Copyright Act, which limit an ISP’s liability if it takes ‘‘reasonable steps’’ to deal with repeat copyright infringers.