iiNet wins landmark case

Justice Cowdry of the Federal Court of Australia this morning brought down judgment in the iiNet copyright case, in which the Australian ISP was successful.

It was alleged by 34 applicants made up of film studios such as Sony and Warner Bros that iiNet had facilitated copyright infringement, by allowing customers to use peer to peer software to download pirate versions of movies and other copyrighted material.

The Court held that the law did not impose a positive obligation upon iiNet to prevent copyright infringement. The result comes as a slap in the face to the big film studios who had vigorously pursued this case.

This case had attracted international attention and had resulted in legislative changes in jurisdictions such as the UK, where ISPs have an obligation to disconnect customer who infringe copyright.

ISP Lawyers and Telecommunications Lawyers have for some time been debating the merits of this case – some commentators don’t think that this is the end of the matter, with the films studios having the ability to appeal the judgment on points of law.

More to follow…….

Click here to see media comments on the iiNet judgment by Cooper Mills Director, IT & T Lawyer, Erhan Karabardak.