Top posts on iiNet vs AFACT case: Part II
- 17 October, 2009 08:40
Controversy over the ongoing iiNet vs AFACT case has once again sparked an influx of comments on online articles and forums. As the second week of the case draws to a close, we take a look at the top posts, many from people brave enough to predict a winner.
AFACT is wrong in bringing this action. Their members are responsible for policing and protecting their copyright not the ISPs. The have brought on this case because iNet will nor dicipline it's users when reported by AFACT. However to deny service on AFACT notice would leave iNet open to legal action because at this stage it is merely an unproven and unsupported accusation. AFACT should procede to charge the people with piracy before the courts and once they have a conviction then the ISP would be bound to deny service or suspend their account. AFACT is just looking for a scapegoat to do their copyright policework for them.
From hellfire on Computerworld.com.au — AFACT has already notched up a win in copyright case
If iinet is liable for illegal downloads, should Telstra (or any phone carrier) be held liable for allowing criminals to make phone calls?
From Anonymous on Computerworld.com.au — AFACT has already notched up a win in copyright case
Copyright infringement hmm - isn't this what we have done for years when we've record music from a radio station and play it back later .. or record a TV programme on our VCR and play it back at a later date to watch .. without any concerns at all being raised for years. All of a sudden AFACT decide they are going to make a stand and try and turn us into criminals .. they had better be careful that the same people they are targeting don't use the WWW to start campaigns, send e-mails, make websites to boycott the very films, records and songs, books they are trying to protect. What would happen to their precious advertising revenue when ordinarily everyday Australians get their backs up and refuse to watch any movies or listen to any music or buy any books of the companies involved in this action. Do they think that the film star, music artist or advertising dollar would stay with them for long if it was against popular opinion and lost public support. AFACT are biting the hand that feeds them!
From Anonymous on Computerworld.com.au — AFACT has already notched up a win in copyright case
An ISP is simply a service provider, just like a power company.A service provider supplies a service to a customer nothing more. Is a power company to be held responsible for what people(end users) do with the power that they provide. Should a power company be charged because somebody uses the power provided to run a hydroponics system to illegally produce cannabis? Or a water company be charged for "allowing" the water to be used for illegal purposes? What people choose to use a provided service for is not the responsibility of the service provider it is the responsibility of the end user as an individual to abide by the law. A hardware store is not charged because they sold a can of spray paint and somebody chose to use that can of paint to create graffiti on a public building. A fertiliser company is not charged for providing a bag of fertiliser to a customer who then turns that fertiliser into a bomb. Large corporations use their financial muscle and paid political influence to force laws on the people in order to increase their profits. We no longer live in a Democracy ie rule by the people. We now live in a Corpocracy where corporations rule and the people are just cannon fodder used to create profits.
From Lightning on Computerworld.com.au — AFACT has already notched up a win in copyright case
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The music and film industries could spend their money more wisely by investigating better ways to allow people to buy music legally online.While the majority of the population of Australia live in towns and cities along the eastern coast, many Australians are spread out in small country towns or on stations and mine sites around the outback where there are no dedicated music shops and the selection of CDs at newsagents and roadhouses is limited and overpriced.
The present system where people can download encrypted music files online from their ISP's website or some other website and then purchase the decryption key would be wonderful if it would work properly and if it could be made reliable. Some of the time it works okay from the customer's point of view, and I think most consumers would actually like to support their favorite artists. Too often though, things go wrong. For example when the decryption key a person paid for got corrupted during the download and fails to work or when all of the decryption keys are lost during an operating system re-install necessitated by a virus. It can be a big hassle and waste of time for the consumer to be kept waiting on the phone for hours in a queue for technical assistance to resend your decryption keys. Providing of course that the tech assistant believes the consumer's story.
After being run through that kind of bad experience a couple of times consumers soon become frustrated and learn to shy away from purchasing encrypted music downloads. Some of us actually work hard outdoors physically for our dollar. No-one compensates the consumer for the time they spend tied up on the phone, and surely the consumer's time is worth something too.
The other problem with the present system is it doesn't work for Linux users. People are forced to use proprietary operating systems which are inherently vulnerable to viruses, defective and costly to maintain if they want to make music purchases legally.
What about the poor consumer? Is anyone considering the wishes of the consumer here? Have we forgotten the old saying 'the customer is always right'? Why doesn't AFACT stop wasting it's money bothering our ISPs and do something constructive.
From herm546 on iTwire —AFACT, iiNet head for the recess playground
judging from the critical comment of "AFACT: our evidence not 100% reliable" the judge/magistrate should just throw the case out of court, if they can't prove it 100% then there technically shouldn't be a case to answer to. the same thing happens in criminal cases, if there is no evidence to backup the acusation or alleged evidence is patchy the likelihood is that it will be thrown out of the criminal court in criminal terms: the burden of proof relies solely on the prosecution or in lamens terms innocent until proven guilty and in this case it would appear as though the AFACT /prosecution can't prove very much at all as they did not have a warrant to collect physical computer systems and perform forensic data analysis on those systems.
Sorry if that makes no sense and sounds like a ramble but its true no evidence usually = thrown out
From Anonymous on ZDNet Australia —AFACT: Our evidence not 100% reliable
A very good point made here. What about all the mum and dad internet users with unsecured net connections. We all know or know of someone in the past who has stolen a nearby net connection for use.(I do NOT condone that nor have I EVER done it) Are those people then going to recieve a letter stating they will have their net cut off. They wouldn't have a clue what was going on!
Sharing is careing people.
Anonymous on ZDNet Australia — Kazaa witness takes iiTrial stand
If I borrow your car, and commit a hit and run, should you as the owner of the car be automatically convicted of dangerous driving and jailed?
It must be proven that an actual person committed a piracy offence, and that person should be charged, as opposed to automatically disconnecting the account holder simply because they are owner of that account.
In households with children, flatmates, resident guests, visitors, etc, any one of these people might commit an act of copyright piracy. You cannot punish the law abiding account holder for crimes they did not commit.
Anonymous on ZDNet Australia — Kazaa witness takes iiTrial stand
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I think that the notices they already send are reasonably sufficient evidence that infringement is going on. I know there is a statistically relevant false-positive rate but with the ubiquity of p2p filesharing I am sure that number will drop. I don't know a single person who doesn't have some form of pirated media on their computer, iPod, phone, laptop, media centre, etc. What I'm more concerned with is the response options the alleged infringer has. I am absolutely and unequivocally against a 3 strikes system where an ISP must disconnect an alleged infringer merely at the word of some third party such as AFACT. In my view if AFACT alleges infringement and the alleged infringer refutes the allegation then it should not count as a strike until a court has determined, on the civil balance of proof, that the end user has infringed. AFACT/whomever will still get their injunction and account of profits but it will not entitle them to have the end user's internet disconnected. If AFACT then allege infringement twice more, and both times the end user is found by a competent court to be infringing, they can request that the ISP terminate service. Such a request should be accompanied by the three court orders which unequivocally show the end user was infringing. That is the only form of a 3-strikes policy I would even nominally support. If you're stupid enough to be caught – and have a court make orders against you – 3 times, then you probably shouldn't be using the internet and/or should learn to control your network better (for example, if your kids did it). Having said that I think '3 strikes' is a silly idea. Why 3 and not 4? Why 3 and not 2? The Act only requires repeat infringement before an ISP must implement and enforce a policy to terminate services. In my mind 2 infringements, or 4, is as tenable to the term 'repeat' as 3 is. Unfortunately I don't have the ultimate answer to what is reasonable in the circumstances. I don't condone copyright infringement but I'm also not a fan of endless litigation against mum and dad internet users.@ Digger I think that what they are trying to prove is that the claims by AFACT are vastly over exagerated as in the instance of 1 user downloading 1 file via bit torrent, every time they got disconnected and then reconnected, AFACT was counting it as a separate infringment and thus generating huge numbers against a small population that could then be extrapolated to a nummber of staggering proportions. All the way along they have been trying to prove that AFACT's claims are exaggerated, this is just more of this.
I suspect the additional point to this is that if the 3 strikes and your banned process that AFACT wants comes into place, then if you are downloading the one file but change dynamic IP's 3 times, then you could be automatically banned, even before you had a chance to repent.
From Shiv on iTnews.com.au — Day Eight: AFACT solicitor grilled on ISP disconnections