computerwoche.de

Archiv

In Australia, an ISP prevails in long-running copyright dispute

20.04.2012
A long-running lawsuit against Australia's second-largest ISP has ended in a defeat for the entertainment industry, which sought to hold the ISP liable for copyright infringement on its network.

The ISP, iiNet, was sued in 2008 by 34 entertainment companies, including Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. and Disney, for allegedly failing to stop peer-to-peer file sharing of their copyright material.

Australia's High Court, which released the decision on its website Friday, found that iiNet did not "authorize" the copyright infringement by its users. The High Court's decision is final, meaning the entertainment industry can't appeal.

iiNet and the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) are expected to release statements later on Friday.

The entertainment industry sought to prove that iiNet had authorized the infringement. In February 2010, the Federal Court ruled that iiNet had not done that, even though the ISP had not used legal and technical measures available to it to try and stop the infringement. The case was then appealed to the High Court.

The entertainment industry wanted iiNet to send its customers a warning to delete infringing content made available on BitTorrent, and if the file was still online after a week, to cut off the customer's Internet connection.