Australian federal court hands down decision in site blocking case

UPDATE: A federal judge has handed down its verdict in the country’s first site blocking case, opening the door for a major crackdown on websites hosting illegal streaming services and torrents.

The Federal Court handed down the verdict — the first of its kind — which goes a long way to clarifying the fate of illegal torrent and streaming websites such as The Pirate Bay and SolarMovie in Australia.

The court ruled that internet service providers must “take reasonable steps to disable access” to such sites.

After nearly a year in the court system, the verdict was handed down shortly after 2.15pm today. A handful of tech journalists were on hand and live tweeted the decision, reporting that rights holder who seek to have websites blocked will have to pay a fee to ISPs for doing so.

The judge also appears to support the application of rolling injunctions to make it easier to chase offending sites, but said it must come with court oversight and not be automatic like telcos had argued for.

The rights holders Village Roadshow and Foxtel were also ordered to pays to legal costs of the ISPs.

Link

Sure, there are still ways around it, but this will probably put a large dent in the torrent sharing capabilities for many Australians. I still believe the "downloading copies of digital content = theft" is a flawed argument and that the major heads of studios pushing for these measures are doing so for selfish, greedy reasons.

Will this ruling have a profound impact on the prevalence of internet piracy in Australia?

a reply to: Dark Ghost

No, theft is theft, digital or otherwise.

That being said, this could be a blow to crowd sourcing information if it's blocking torrent completely.

Owners of digital media can go after someone for massive copyright legally if they are so concerned.

originally posted by: Dark Ghost
I still believe the "downloading copies of digital content = theft" is a flawed argument and that the major heads of studios pushing for these measures are doing so for selfish, greedy reasons.

Will this ruling have a profound impact on the prevalence of internet piracy in Australia?

Doubtful.

The silly argument that its theft annoys me, its copyright infringement. But will this stop illegal downloading, not really. At least they are making the holders accountable to costs which might slow them down a bit otherwise probably a good 50% of the internet would vanish overnight (the other 49% being porn and the remainder 1% everything else...). Those are just silly guestimates, but sites will pop back up like dessert flowers after the rains have come.


What they should be doing down here is going to the markets. For the last 25 years there have been sellers of movies/games/software every week making an absolute killing flogging discs at $10 a pop. For the average adult with no online skills, these places are a filling a niche for them to get media at a cost they can afford. I've seen them with some extremely difficult to source software, like $4K range stuff. Yours for a tenner.

(I no longer get tempted by them as for the last 15-20 years I've moved to mostly genuine copies of stuff)

originally posted by: CriticalStinker
a reply to: Dark Ghost

No, theft is theft, digital or otherwise.

That being said, this could be a blow to crowd sourcing information if it's blocking torrent completely.

Owners of digital media can go after someone for massive copyright legally if they are so concerned.

No, it's copyright infringement.
They would only be blocking a torrent website. There are thousands of them and to block it they would need to stop all peer-to-peer connections as well.

Yep, I agree that they can go after those who have downloaded illegally. However, they have to prove it which is very grey. Maybe there was a party at the house that night and someone else downloaded "Speed", not the home owner. That's like if someone stole my car and killed a person with it, I'm not responsible for them because I own the stolen car.

Oh my, copyright infringement! Get ready for my rant, whoops sorry my reply.
Copyright is the wrong term, legalized blackmail is a better term.ie. You WILL pay us or we WILL prosecute you.
Copyright should only be applicable for 12 months. Yes you heard 12 months. Now you hit Intellectual property. That's just general BS to justify copyright.
Let me elucidate. Take say a Mr b. Gates, he came up with this idea for a computer thingie. He flogs you his disc(which cost a few pence) for $50 or $60. It makes him billions for his flight of fancy idea.
Now take me, I'm a time served carpenter, 5 years low pay and hard work. Now say that Mr Gates wants a new front door, I fit him one then charge him 100 times the cost. He would grumble at that. Now I say to him "yes but every time someone uses the door(and you can only use that door to get in or out) to go in or go out you HAVE to pay me $1 and so you can't fiddle me I have an army of lawyers and governments watching that you pay up.
Now what would Mr Gates or any of you say to that?
Copyright is, was and always will be legalized robbery.

a reply to: crayzeed

So it's "legalized blackmail" to charge money for content? Don't be so ridiculous. No one's forcing you to watch Game of Thrones or whatever.

Copyright should only be applicable for 12 months. Yes you heard 12 months. Now you hit Intellectual property. That's just general BS to justify copyright.

And you should only be able to charge for your carpentry services for 12 months after you finished your training. No one needs to recoup their expenditure and continue making a profit for more than 12 months, right?

Take say a Mr b. Gates, he came up with this idea for a computer thingie. He flogs you his disc(which cost a few pence) for $50 or $60.

Then you should only charge the cost of raw materials for your carpentry. The skills and knowledge you use to produce the product are now worthless, as per your argument.

Now say that Mr Gates wants a new front door, I fit him one then charge him 100 times the cost. He would grumble at that. Now I say to him "yes but every time someone uses the door(and you can only use that door to get in or out) to go in or go out you HAVE to pay me $1 and so you can't fiddle me I have an army of lawyers and governments watching that you pay up.

And then he can laugh in your face for being so ridiculous and take his custom elsewhere. He doesn't have a right to take the door from you without paying. THAT would be robbery.

a reply to: GetHypedNah, you still haven't got it. If I fit a door I get paid for buying the door and fitting it. Then I get paid and move on. But something you don't get is then I go and fit another door for someone else. It's not the same door. It's not a copy. With copyright you are being charged for the same thing over and over again. For a copy. It's just an intellectual reason, a reason to justify you and everyone else to pay.
It's all about feeding the parasites and hangers on because they are the ones getting the lions share of money made.

a reply to: crayzeed

And likewise you are now imposed with a fixed income time frame of 1 year. Quick, make as much money with your skill set and experience as you can, time is ticking away!

a reply to: GetHyped
Yes, correct. And it should be the same for everyone.