AFACT vs iiNet - Week 3 Updates

[admin]

Week 3 of the AFACT vs iiNet copyright trial started this week, following a break.

Here's a summary:

Monday (Day 11): iiNet CEO Michael Malone was accused in court by the AFACT of submitting misleading affidavits in relation to Westnet's automated system for dealing with copyright infringement notices (iiNet acquired Westnet in 2008). Citing email conversations between Malone and Westnet's operations manager which Malone is said to have asked Westnet to be a little bit less "proactive" in regards to its piracy policy. But iiNet replied saying that passing on these copyright infringement notices may be a breach of the Telecommunications Act, as it relied on using customer information in a way that may be considered illegal.

More:
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/159573...ht-policy.aspx
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/159580...telco-act.aspx

Tuesday: Malone was again questioned on the stand and he was adamant that iiNet did not have legal authority to disconnect users, even for serious crimes such as child pornography, which leads them with no choice but to forward the relevant information to the police. The AFACT branded iiNet's actions of forwarding infringement notices to the police as "cynical".

More:
http://www.computerworld.com.au/arti...warrants_daily
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/159665...d-cynical.aspx

Wednesday: The AFACT forced Malone to admit that a large proportion of usage on its networks is by BitTorrent traffic, and from that, a large percentage may be for illegal content. Malone states that he would rather these customers go somewhere else, as his company is being sued as a result, but the AFACT contends that iiNet is happy to receive money from these customers in the meantime. iiNet also offers something called "Freezone", in which downloads from selected servers, like iTunes, is free of the bandwidth restrictions. The AFACT says this helps pirates as it frees up bandwidth for them, while Malone says that Freezone helps to provide incentive for legal downloads, since the cost savings in bandwidth can be used to purchase more content.

More:
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/159742...s-traffic.aspx
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/159744...es-at-bay.aspx

Thursday: The AFACT intends to force iiNet to block access to The Pirate Bay if they are the winners of this court case. Malone was grilled on whether they have taken any steps to block such websites, in which case Malone said that they do not yet have the technical capability to do so, as they would require new equipment. Malone also said that any such block can be "trivially bypassed" by customers.

More:
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/159823...ay-access.aspx

It's an interesting line of attack by the AFACT this week. The attack on "Freezone" was particularly interesting, since Freezone actually promotes legal content by offering free bandwidth for them. But the copyright holders obviously hate the notion of large bandwidth allowances, preferring technology to leap back a few years when limited bandwidth kept at least movie downloads in check. This is exactly the sort of anti-innovation thinking you would expect from groups like the AFACT (which is basically an arm of the MPAA here in Australia). The AFACT's future plans of getting ISPs to block any websites which they seem unworthy was also revealed. The Pirate Bay may be a place where a lot of torrents for copyright material may be present, but it also has a lot of legal content, but obviously the AFACT do not care about this.

Friday's updates to be posted tomorrow.

[admin]

Friday update: iiNet chief regulatory officer, Steve Dalby, took the stand. He said that iiNet should not be doing the AFACT's work, and the AFACT should have sought a court order if they wanted iiNet to suspend users. Dalby also said that while he requested more information in regards to AFACT's initial letter to iiNet, this was more out of "intellectual curiosity" rather than any need for real information, as no actions were going to be taken in any case. The AFACT called this "complete and utterly misleading".

On the issue of matching IP addresses, Dalby said he was not sure how long IP addresses are stored on iiNet systems, and as such, there may be difficulty in matching IP addresses to users.

More:

http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/325...4194304&fpid=1

[blutach]

This is an important case for Australia. As admin has said, it's "privacy vs piracy". And both have strong legislative backing here.

Regards