Digital Culture & Copyright
With the acceleration of broadband speeds and the capacity of file storage, piracy has become commonplace. The film and television industry have had little time to prepare themselves before online piracy reached emergency levels. File sharing remains the biggest problem for rights owners, particularly within social websites such as MySpace, Facebook and YouTube, but new forms of piracy continue to emerge. Recently, 34 players in the film and television industry have filed proceedings in the Federal Court against Internet service provider, iiNet. The main issue they have identified in these proceedings is whether iiNet is responsible for its users infringing copyright. The applicants, including Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment and the Seven Network, argue that iiNet has been informed about thousands of illegal file transfers carried out through its network and that it has done nothing to prevent its users from continuing to pirate copyright material. The Court will need to decide whether iiNet had the capacity to prevent copyright infringement via its network and if they took any reasonable steps to do so.
The Internet Industry Association has presented the view that Internet service providers do no more than passively transmit content and should not be held responsible for enforcing privacy rights. The statement of claim by the film companies in the iiNet case says that the internet service provided encouraged its users to infringe copyright and failed to enforce users terms and conditions which prohibited copyright infringement. In summary, they argue that iiNet did more than just merely provide content for users to engage in online piracy.
For some time, Music Industry Privacy Investigations (MIPI), an organisation representing rights owners, has put forward a notice and disconnect regime to be adopted in Australia. The idea behind this scheme is that Internet service providers have the capacity to identify online infringement and disconnect users who repeatedly pirate copyright material. This involves sending users and initial warning when infringement has been detected and disconnecting accounts if infringement continues.
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