It’s Judgement Day – iiNet vs Movie Studios decision (iiNet Wins!!)

Posted Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 7:55 am by Jason Cartwright |

Update

Well the big decision is in, iiNet have won the case. Here are some quotes from the court room.

"iinet has no control over bittorrent system and not responsible for bittorrent system."

The fact there is worldwide piracy "does not necessitate or compel a finding of authorisation, just because it is felt there is something that must be done."

iiNet "was entitled to safe harbour" as it had a policy on infringement, even if its policy didn’t stand up to AFACT’s standards

"copyright occured as result of use of BitTorrent, not the Internet" said Justice Cowdroy

The end result is, the case is closed, AFACT has to pay for iiNet’s costs. 

Today is one of the most critical days in Australian Internet history. From the Federal Court in Sydney, Justice Cowdroy is set to hand down his decision on the iiNet copyright violation case. If you not familiar with the case, a collective of movie studios have banded together to create a law suit against iiNet, protesting that iiNet didn’t do enough to deal with ‘known offenders’. These are people who download and distribute movies and tv shows, of which copyright belongs to the movie studios.

Today’s decision, due at 9.30am AEDT, will set a precedent for how all Australian ISPs will prosecute offenders in the future. It’s also likely that today’s decision will be appealed from whichever side looses. Remember there’s billions of dollars at stake here, so it won’t be settled easily.

Personally I hope some kind of middle ground can be reached.

itnews is doing live coverage of the days events using cover it live. Follow along at http://www.itnews.com.au/News/166296,iitrial-judgement-day-live-coverage.aspx

You can also follow along by watching the #iiTrial hashtag on twitter.