Courts find in favour of iiNet in copyright case

The landmark copyright case against iiNet filed by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) and a consortium of film and TV companies has now ended with the Australian Federal Court finding in favour of the broadband internet service provider.

The final ruling by Judge Dennis Cowdrey in the Australian Federal court was not only welcomed by iiNet but was also applauded by a number of major Australian carriers including Optus and Telstra who agreed that ISP’s should not be required to police the information accessed by users over their network.

A statement from iiNet confirmed that it welcomed the outcome of the court case and that it had never encouraged or supported any breaches in the law and this included infringement of the Telecommunications act or the Copyright Act.

The provider added “iiNet has always been, and will continue to be, a good corporate citizen and an even better copyright citizen.”

In the final ruling on the copyright case Judge Cowdrey said that even though iiNet were aware of copyright infringements on its network and made no attempt to stop them he could not rule that iiNet had authorised piracy over its network simply because it failed to act on notices of infringement by content providers.

Although iiNet has said that it will now carry on as usual and has also advised that it will be looking at working with the copyright holders and the film industry to find a legitimate method of users accessing their content it is highly likely that there will be an appeal against the ruling due to the huge implications that this case may bring around the world.

With many countries around the world considering a “three-strikes” legislation for illegal file downloader’s the outcome of this case could now have a serious impact on their ability to do it.

Source – iinet