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More updates in the AFACT vs iiNet court case.
Monday: The first day of closing statements by the AFACT. The AFACT says iiNet authorised infringing acts as they had provisions in the customer agreement in regards to copyright infringement, and yet refused to enforce these rules when it mattered. The AFACT's lead barrister Tony Bannon also attacked iiNet's use of the Telecommunications Act as a reason for not passing on the infringement notices (as the act forbids use of customer information by third parties), saying that no other ISP has used this act as a shield against passing on infringement notices.
Tuesday: In their closing statement, the AFACT attacks the two iiNet witnesses, CEO Michael Malone and chief regulator Steve Dalby, calling them "incredible", "evasive" and unreliable. Classifying iiNet's defense as basically a series of excuses, Tony Bannon also attacked the unavailability of other witnesses from iiNet's, especially in relation to answering technical questions like the operation of BitTorrent which Malone and Dalby were unable to answer.
Wednesday: The AFACT continues their closing statement. The AFACT asked the judge to disregard iiNet's testimonies citing contradictory statements by iiNet in regards to first labeling the infringement notices as "mere allegations" and later admitting in court that these were "compelling evidence". The AFACT also accused iiNet of not taking reasonable actions, such as iiNet's using their existing overdue payment warning system to issue warning emails and even temporary suspensions to handle infringers.
Friday: Closing statements by iiNet starts today. iiNet says that from the data available, through 20 sample users and from AFACT's own data, that infringing acts do not occur that frequently at all, in fact possibly only one or two downloads in the 59 week monitoring period per account. And the response requested by the AFACT was disproportionate to these relatively rare acts of infringement. iiNet also accused the AFACT's views of being distorted by the "prism of concern" the studios had over copyright infringement, that even innocuous statements such as "Happy downloading" on iiNet's new accounts welcome email were being viewed as iiNet's encouraging customers to download illegal content. In reference to freezone, iiNet's legal content download service which does not use up an user's quota, iiNet's lead barrister Richard Cobden said that it was a case of "damned if you do and damned if you don’t.". Even though freezone encourages legal downloads, the AFACT accused of iiNet of supporting illegal downloads by not counting bandwidth for content downloaded from freezone, and hence, freeing download quota for illegal content. In relation to the charge of authorization, iiNet likened their situation to "providing the photocopier but not providing the books", referencing the University of NSW vs Moorhouse judgement which centered around allowing students to use photocopiers to make copies of books that the AFACT used to support their case.
The case will be extended to the next week as there was not enough time for closing statements to be heard.
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Monday: The first day of closing statements by the AFACT. The AFACT says iiNet authorised infringing acts as they had provisions in the customer agreement in regards to copyright infringement, and yet refused to enforce these rules when it mattered. The AFACT's lead barrister Tony Bannon also attacked iiNet's use of the Telecommunications Act as a reason for not passing on the infringement notices (as the act forbids use of customer information by third parties), saying that no other ISP has used this act as a shield against passing on infringement notices.
Tuesday: In their closing statement, the AFACT attacks the two iiNet witnesses, CEO Michael Malone and chief regulator Steve Dalby, calling them "incredible", "evasive" and unreliable. Classifying iiNet's defense as basically a series of excuses, Tony Bannon also attacked the unavailability of other witnesses from iiNet's, especially in relation to answering technical questions like the operation of BitTorrent which Malone and Dalby were unable to answer.
Wednesday: The AFACT continues their closing statement. The AFACT asked the judge to disregard iiNet's testimonies citing contradictory statements by iiNet in regards to first labeling the infringement notices as "mere allegations" and later admitting in court that these were "compelling evidence". The AFACT also accused iiNet of not taking reasonable actions, such as iiNet's using their existing overdue payment warning system to issue warning emails and even temporary suspensions to handle infringers.
Friday: Closing statements by iiNet starts today. iiNet says that from the data available, through 20 sample users and from AFACT's own data, that infringing acts do not occur that frequently at all, in fact possibly only one or two downloads in the 59 week monitoring period per account. And the response requested by the AFACT was disproportionate to these relatively rare acts of infringement. iiNet also accused the AFACT's views of being distorted by the "prism of concern" the studios had over copyright infringement, that even innocuous statements such as "Happy downloading" on iiNet's new accounts welcome email were being viewed as iiNet's encouraging customers to download illegal content. In reference to freezone, iiNet's legal content download service which does not use up an user's quota, iiNet's lead barrister Richard Cobden said that it was a case of "damned if you do and damned if you don’t.". Even though freezone encourages legal downloads, the AFACT accused of iiNet of supporting illegal downloads by not counting bandwidth for content downloaded from freezone, and hence, freeing download quota for illegal content. In relation to the charge of authorization, iiNet likened their situation to "providing the photocopier but not providing the books", referencing the University of NSW vs Moorhouse judgement which centered around allowing students to use photocopiers to make copies of books that the AFACT used to support their case.
The case will be extended to the next week as there was not enough time for closing statements to be heard.
More:
