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INDUSTRY
LAUNCHES LEGAL ACTION AGAINST IINET TO PREVENT
ONLINE P2P COPYRIGHT
INFRINGEMENT
On
20 November, seven leading film companies and
their affiliates and licensees filed a legal
action against iiNet, a major Australian internet
service provider. The action was filed by Village
Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros
Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures
Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film
Corporation, Disney Enterprises, Inc. and the
Seven Network, the Australian licensee of some of
the infringed works.
The
companies seek a ruling that iiNet infringed
copyright by failing to take reasonable steps,
including enforcing its own terms and conditions,
to prevent known unauthorised use of copies of the
companies’ films and TV programs by iiNet’s
customers via its network. Executive Director of
AFACT, Ms Adrianne
Pecotic, said the action by
AFACT’s members was necessary because the ISP
ignored repeated notices over many months
identifying thousands of illegal file transfers
via iiNet’s network carried out by its
customers.
The
proceedings will be back before the Court on 17
December 2008.
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BOB
DEBUS, FEDERAL MINISTER FOR HOME AFFAIRS SAYS “DVD
PIRACY IS FAR FROM A VICTIMLESS
CRIME”
AFACT
welcomed comments made by the Minister for Home
Affairs, Bob Debus, in parliament on 24
November.
“Many
members of the public have probably bought or
received a pirated DVD at some stage and not given
too much thought to the criminal aspect of it,
because most people think of it as a victimless
crime,” said Minister Debus. “But it’s becoming
increasingly clear that this is far from the case.
Organised crime is moving into this type of
activity because of the enormous profits that are
being made.”
The
Minister went on to commend the work of state
police enforcement in this area, where raids on
movie piracy “have uncovered illegal weapons,
drugs and child pornography. State and Territory
police will increasingly encounter this type of
crime and if strong action is taken with
enforcement its attractiveness will be reduced,”
he said.
Minister
Debus urged the public, “to stop and think about
where their money might be going next time they
hand over $10 for a cheap DVD.”
On
8 November, Minister Debus attended the
destruction of 230,000 pirated DVDs, the result of
police operations across New South
Wales in 2008. The
destruction event was organised by AFACT and was
attended by the NSW Minister of Fair Trading, The
Hon Ms Virginia Judge, and state and federal
police representatives.
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ATTORNEY-GENERAL
HIGHLIGHTS THE NEED TO FIGHT THE GROWTH OF
PIRACY
AFACT
also welcomed comments made by Australia’s
Attorney-General, The Hon Robert McClelland, in
Canberra on 26
November. Mr McClelland made note of the
importance of the copyright industries to
Australia’s
economy in a speech to officially launch the
Australia Copyright Council study, “The Economic
Impact of Australia’s Copyright Industries”
prepared by Price Waterhouse Coopers.
In
his speech, the Attorney-General set as a goal,
the desire to “ensure that the copyright system
remains fair and effective for both copyright
owners and users.” Mr McClelland acknowledged that
this would include looking at “appropriate
enforcement measures to address the growth of
piracy, [and] the digital economy and the role of
the Internet
industries.”
The
economic study found that the value of copyright
industries to Australia had
increased to 10.3%, and that it is responsible for
employing 7.9% of the workforce, contributing
$97.5 billion to Australia’s
GDP.
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the full report online
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AFP
CHARGE ORGANISERS OF ILLEGAL MOVIE BITTORRENT
TRACKER SITE
On
3 December, the Australian Federal Police (AFP),
assisted by investigators from AFACT, arrested and
charged two unemployed men in their twenties with
multiple copyright and money laundering offences
connected to organising a BitTorrent tracker site
that is alleged to have facilitated the illegal
distribution of millions of movies. A magistrate
subsequently froze a bank account belonging to one
of the defendants which contained $54,000.
Investigations into other bank accounts
continue.
The
arrests were made after a lengthy investigation by
the AFP and AFACT into the site operator’s
activities.
It
will be alleged that the BitTorrent tracker site,
hosted outside of Australia,
facilitated the sharing of copyright movies among
its 400,000 international members, including
thousands of “VIP Members” who paid up to $10 a
month for access to direct downloadable media
resulting in the site
operators raking in excess of $10,000 dollars per
month. It will also be alleged that the accused
organisers had facilitated the transfer of over
10,000
terabytes of data, the equivalent of 14.3 million
copies of movies and TV shows.
Australian
director/producer Andrew Traucki’s, whose film
“Black Water” was being illegally shared on the BT
tracker site, said:
“I
put a huge amount of work into my feature film
Black Water. Being a low budget film I didn't get
paid much and hoped to make some money for all my
effort from the films sales. The fact that Black
Water had been pirated and was online within days
of being finished is upsetting. How are
Australian film producers like me meant to make a
living from our films if people pirate the film
and watch it for free? I thank the Australian
Federal Police for their outstanding work in
putting
a stop to the illegal activities of this
group”.
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SYDNEY
INTERNET café RESULTS IN $82,000
FINE
On
25 November at Downing Centre Local Court, Sydney,
Interville Technology Pty Ltd pleaded guilty to
40
charges of copyright infringement. Magistrate
McIntosh imposed a fine totalling $82,000 on the
company plus court costs and ordered that the nine
computer terminals, eight DVD burners and one hard
drive seized during the raid were to be forfeited.
The
charges arose from an 18 December 2007 raid by the
Australian Federal Police on the Interville
Technology Internet café, 391 Pitt
Street, in Sydney’s CBD. The
raid followed a long-term investigation into the
café’s operations by AFACT
which
confirmed that the café was charging hourly fees
for customers to view infringing movies and music
and selling storage
devices with capacities of up to 60GB (capable of
storing over 40 movies and hundreds of music
files) which customers were using to copy
infringing music, movies and TV shows.
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(ENDS)
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