iinet comes down on the side of ISPs

Australia's High Court -- the nation's highest -- has given a clear ruling that internet service providers are not liable for authorising copyright infringement by making their services available to people who do infringe copyright. The High Court unanimously dismissed the appeal in the case and the Court observed that iiNet had no direct technical power to prevent its customers from using the BitTorrent system to infringe copyright in the appellants' films. Rather, the extent of iiNet's power to prevent its customers from infringing the appellants' copyright was limited to an indirect power to terminate its contractual relationship with its customers. Further, the Court held that the information contained in the AFACT notices, as and when they were served, did not provide iiNet with a reasonable basis for sending warning notices to individual customers containing threats to suspend or terminate those customers' accounts. For these reasons, the Court held that it could not be inferred from iiNet's inactivity after receiving the AFACT notices that iiNet had authorised any act of infringement of copyright in the appellants' films by its customers. Its all on the IPKat, in a blog written by Jeremy and rather than repeat this, just click here for the full story. ROADSHOW FILMS PTY LTD & ORS v iiNET LIMITED [2012] HCA 16 and more here http://www.zdnet.com.au/iinet-afact-plot-the-way-forward-339336379.htm