Hey kids! Wondering what to do with your life? Why not consider a career in copyright law? Sure, it means selling a part of your soul to Beelzebub, but you’ll never be wanting for work, seeing as how movie studios refuse to wake up to the fact that litigation won’t stop piracy.
The latest case of film companies knee-jerk attempts to stop copyright infringement is to sue Aussie ISP iiNet. According to Asher Moses over at SMH, all the big studios are in on the action – Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox and Disney are all in on the lawsuit, plus The Seven Network (because filesharing of Sunrise is running rampant).
The argument is that iiNet infringed copyright by not stopping its users from illegally downloading copyrighted content. They apparently provided iiNet with “about 18″ separate notices of the infringement and iiNet did nothing.It constantly astounds me how the studios can be prepared to spend so much time and money focussing on litigation rather than trying to really deal with the problem. In the same SMH article Chris Chard, MD of Roadshow Entertainment, said that “as broadband speeds and internet penetration increased, more and more people were turning to piracy.”
The question Chris doesn’t ask is: “why are people turning to piracy?” The answer is simple: There isn’t a decent alternative. In Australia, if you want to legally download a movie, you have two options: iTunes or BigPond. And while iTunes is relatively cheap and easy, it’s so restrictive in how you can watch it (you’re either stuck at your PC, on an iPod or iPhone, or if you own an Apple TV, you can watch it on your TV). BigPond is more expensive, the selection isn’t as good, and you have to watch it through their proprietary software which means watching it on your PC (or potentially a TV if you’re PC is directly connected to the screen). Not to mention that for most people, you need to pay for not only the purchase of the movie, but also the bandwidth as you download. Using Bittorrent is quicker, easier and (obviously) cheaper. If the networks were serious about stamping out piracy they would be making a seriously concerted effort to provide more and more legal alternatives as well as pushing for a better broadband standard for Australians.
Seriously guys – try and fight for the consumer and not against them, and you’ll suddenly find that the consumer will start respecting you and your copyright…
In any case, it will be really interesting to see how this one goes, as it will almost certainly set a precedent for copyright lawsuits against ISPs throughout the country. I really, really hope that iiNet wins – if an ISP has to start filtering copyrighted content or dedicating manpower to stop piracy, that can only mean one thing for the end user, and that’s higher fees and potentially slower broadband.
[SMH]
flamingdrongo
Friday, November 21, 2008 at 11:15 AMfilesharing Sunrise?????????????……. seriously? the one with Koshie???
StevoTheDevo
Friday, November 21, 2008 at 12:26 PMThe biggest joke is exactly that for me to legally acquire content, not only do I have to pay, I also have to jump through multiple hoops and then I’m restricted to when, how and on what I can use the content.
Even after buying a DVD, I have to sit through an ad that tells me not to steal the content thats on the DVD..
Newsflash: I JUST BOUGHT THE DVD!!!
Seeing that ad creates exactly the opposite effect to it’s desired effect.. It makes me want to pirate the movie, casue I know with the pirated movie I don’t have to sit through the stupid, unskippable ad!
Ollie
Friday, November 21, 2008 at 12:33 PMLocal Councils are responsible for the upkeep of roads etc, not for policing who drives on them. Same should apply for ISPs… they’re responsible for the upkeep of the hardware, not what travels through it.
Peter T
Friday, November 21, 2008 at 12:35 PMThis raises too many questions…
Why target iinet, when surely Australia’s Largest ISP is doing even less to restrict illegal torrent downloads, in fact, why not target every ISP in the world?
iinet could surely launch litigation against the wholesaler for permitting the traffic of illegal torrents into there pipe?
We all know who that is, don’t we. Yep, the same company that seems to have been overlooked as Australia’s largest ISP.
Litigation is for losers and the lazy….
Nick Broughall
Friday, November 21, 2008 at 1:10 PM@flamingdrongo – nah, I made that up. I don’t know why channel 7′s on the litiigators list though. Maybe Home and Away?
Cam
Friday, November 21, 2008 at 2:51 PMI reckon they’ve picked on the wrong ISP. They’ve decided to make an example out of the fact that IINET have not passed on warnings to users identified of sharing copyright material via P2P networks, rather preferring to pass the customer details back to law enforcement agencies to investigate.
Good on you Michael Malone, the reason they are picking on you is because unlike Telstra/Optus/TPG (who do pass on any warnings from AFACT), you have stood up to AFACT and have refused to be bullied. Bullied into what is (lets be honest here) a poor attempt at addressing the reason why P2P sharing of tv shows is so popular – the tv networks. I quite happily watch tv shows through legitimate means when it is offered to me (youtube, video podcasts, abc iview), but tell me why I should wait several months for local broadcasters to show programs which are being screened in overseas markets many months earlier?
If the law makers define a precedent here then look out holden and the state transport departments… YOU are allowing people to engage in illegal activity when they speed!
Brad
Friday, November 21, 2008 at 3:05 PMThere’s no doubt that content is being illegally acquired more and more in this country. Not only would giving us more legal avenues of downloading our content be part of the solution, how about releasing this content to us at the same time as the rest of the world??!!
Shane Whitehead
Friday, November 21, 2008 at 4:01 PMHonestly, I think some of you should be putting the defense’s case together, those are some really awesome arguments…shame the judge won’t see it that way … :{
mr-crash
Friday, November 21, 2008 at 4:02 PMI’m in the market for a new ISP.
If someone from iinet lays down some common sense here – i’ll switch to them :D
Why bother iinet. Also, a WHOLE 18?!… That’s big dollars there. Maybe $50 on itunes… Go do something important instead.
Michael Kubler
Friday, November 21, 2008 at 5:38 PMI agree.
There is rampant piracy because there isn’t enough alternatives.
I don’t want DRM crippled movies that try and self-destruct after a single viewing, or can only be used on my PC I downloaded it on, but not my Mythbuntu box connected to my TV.
I’m happy to pay to download TV series and movies from the net, although with the price of Internet quota these days if you do download a 700MB movie, it already costs me a few dollars depending on the plan.
Adam
Friday, November 21, 2008 at 9:37 PMThis AFACT..who the F**K to they think they are?
Here’s the facts – they are a bunch of “movie studios” engaging in a global crime syndicate, gross violation of privacy, blackmail, intimidation, threats, wasting the justice system’s resources (and ultimately our taxpayer dollars) and countless other serious crimes I don’t have the space or time to type here.
Here’s another fact AFACT! Ever considered you are “losing profits” because everything you produce, distribute and broadcast is just plain crap? who the hell would watch, let alone waste their quota downloading “Happy Feet” and “I Am Legend” HAHA!
and here’s another fact – we know you’re parent companies and partners in crime are the RIAA and the MPAA who not only continue to sue aimlessly (and lose) but also continue to rape the artists you claim to protect, by minimising royalties and maximising funding for all those pointless lawsuits, which further exposes your crimes. Just change your acronym to describe who you really are: MAFIA.
Like Malone said, “IF a crime has been committed, notify the police and they will prosecute!” do you sue a brewery because a drunk driver killed your loved one? a tiny grain of common sense tells you AFACT are the hypocrites and criminals here, not the average Joe downloading free content widely accessible in the public domain.
AFACT might as well come clean and finally hand themselves in :)
dave
Saturday, November 22, 2008 at 1:40 AMI reckon if people can so ISP’s for people downloading content through them, we should be able to sue the government that owns the roads on which people drive away with stolen goods after they break into someones house!
scoobjay
Monday, November 24, 2008 at 4:18 AMI love the speed I get on iinet, with adsl2+ . Its pretty much changed the way i use the net, streaming video loads pretty much instantly. Couple that with a work around to use awesome US services like Hulu and Pandora, suddenly theres no need to pirate a large selection of stuff. Unfortunatly, it sucks having to go through hoops to get it working with VPN software, and its not a perfect solution with bandwidth limits and banner ads.
Hulu’s quality and selection is great, and in exchange I dont mind that theres short adbreaks. The shows that they are trying to stop us from pirating, are the things we want to watch. The studios will be the first to tell you how great their product is.
So why then restrict the rest of the world from using an efficient, modern and flexible delivery service like hulu?
Why download the episode to my harddrive, when I can just open my browser and start watching exactly what I want to watch?
Theres suddenly no need to try applying restrictive DRM measures. A large chunk of their exact target audience would be satisfied with streaming the Video as they needed. It just seems like a win/win. Sure the TV networks might not be so happy, but theres no reason they cant get in on the act. I use the TEN video on demand service if theres an aussie show I wanna watch. NBC etc do it in the states.
Anyway, it just seems a more natural fit that draconian DRM for this stuff.
peter
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 at 8:00 PMAll I can say is I agree with everyone’s comments. It is such a stupid waste of time, money energy etc to stop internet piracy. they would make more money getting with the times and using the internet to deliver content streaming either free of charge or at little cost to the consumer. If they did this, and streamed all the content people want, and lower the video quality for example, for free content, they would pretty much wipe out the need for people to pirate as much as they do. I agree, people all pirate as it is easier to get a movie or something else you want that way than other methods on offer.