Stephen Withers
Thursday, 04 February 2010 12:35
IT Policy -
Government Tech Policy
Page 1 of 2
A Federal Court judge has ruled that suspension or termination of Internet accounts is not a reasonable measure to enforce copyrights.
Copyright holders seem like the idea of being able to notify the relevant ISP if they think they have detected someone using the Internet to make unauthorised copies of copyright material - especially when those materials are music or movies being copied through BitTorrent.
But in the summary of his judgement in Roadshow Films Pty Ltd v iiNet Limited (No. 3) [2010] FCA 24, Justice Dennis Cowdroy found "a scheme for notification, suspension and termination of customer accounts is not, in this instance, a relevant power to prevent copyright infringement pursuant to s 101(1A)(a) of the Copyright Act, nor in the circumstances of this case is it a reasonable step pursuant to s 101(1A)(c) of the Copyright Act."
Among other points, the judge noted in his full judgement that even if provision of Internet access was held to be the means of copyright infringement (which it wasn't), there was no significant evidence that a significant portion of the use of an account was associated with infringement.
Judicial consideration of the extent of infringing use of a particular account would be necessary before suspension or termination could be reasonable.
Furthermore, terminating or suspending an account would not only affect the infringing party - everyone that uses the same account (eg, to make VoIP calls) would also be affected.
What else did Cowdroy J say?
Please read on.
