20 April 2012

iiNet - the High Court of Australia decision

The High Court of Australia has handed down its decision in the claim by movie copyright owners against the ISP iiNet.

The High Court dismissed the appeal by the film and television companies! (I had quite a few beers riding on that result - I won)

The copyright owners claimed that iiNet had "authorised" infringement of their copyrights by permitting Bittorrent users to continue using the ISP's services despite being notified by the copyright owners.

Authorisation is a right under s 13(2) of the Copyright Act 1968, and a similar provision was used to convict the Pirate Bay operators - it is no excuse that you don't actually host the files. However, this was not enough to sink iiNet.

Analysis of the judgement to follow shortly.

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