Christian Dunn

If you haven't been following the news iiNet and AFACT are back in court again over the rights of the recording studios to report to an internet provider that a user is sharing illegal content and enforce action to be taken against the user.

ZDNet has been giving a great day by day rundown of the latest court action:

http://www.zdnet.com.au/high-court-day-1-iinets-control-over-choice-339327119.htm
If a user shares illegal media with a torrent application on their home internet connection and this is detected by the copyright protection groups such as AFACT and they report this should you be punished? Can your internet activity be filtered? This is where it all began. Does iiNet have the ability to control your actions with Torrent applications and sharing illegal media? Whose responsibility is it anyway? Should they be responsible for passing on to you threats or fines for sharing illegal media, even by accident? How could they prove it was you? Is iiNet responsible for providing you internet access or are they responsible for what you do with that internet access?

http://www.zdnet.com.au/high-court-day-2-iinet-says-afact-lawsuit-inevitable-339327224.htm
"No matter what kind of warning notice scheme iiNet put in place to stop users breaching copyright, if it didn't include an account termination threat, it wouldn't have been enough to prevent the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) from launching legal action" That pretty much sums up iiNet's case. At first they were told they should have sent a warning letter, so they agreed with that option, then AFACT wanted a notice of termination if illegal media not removed in days, then the ability to throttle connections or terminate your connection. Really? If iiNet had to do that, wouldn't you just use Telstra or TPG? So iiNet would end up losing customers.

http://www.zdnet.com.au/high-court-day-3-afacts-final-pitch-339327285.htm
While iiNet responded that it would cost them to police these actions, AFACT believes it is in iiNet's interest to stop user from using programs like BitTorrent because they are heavy bandwidth hogs and would save iiNet money. While iiNet believe they have no control over what you do on the internet, with programs like BitTorrent, AFACT believe that once you have been detected sharing copyrighted material and iiNet is notified that any further breaches are the responsibility of iiNet so they will have to take actions to stop you sharing.  Judgement in the case is expected in early 2012.