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Music Media

Aussie Music Industry Sues ISP Over Filesharing 202

Posted by timothy from the such-a-negligent-babysitter dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In what is believed to be the first case of its kind in the world, the Australian music industry has listed an Internet service provider (ISP) as a respondent in a court case involving music piracy. The ISP is being sued for 'profiting' (by hosting it) from a site which distributes copyright-infringing material."
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Aussie Music Industry Sues ISP Over Filesharing More

Aussie Music Industry Sues ISP Over Filesharing

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  • And here I was... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by cgranade ( 702534 )
    And here I was thinking that only in the US did we have asinine shit like this being flung... I don't know whether to be encouraged or discouraged to see that we aren't alone.
    • Well, suing a ISP might be the only line of defense here, as we are lucky enough to not have any DMCA sh*t.

      However, a few music piracy sites have been shutdown by the police here.

    • Well I suspect it had something to do with free trade agreement with the US. There is always a price to pay, I guess the Aussie government thought access to the biggest market was worth it.

  • Slashdotted (Score:3, Informative)

    by Sir Haxalot ( 693401 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @02:05AM (#7278948)
    Google Cache [216.239.59.104]

  • DMCA (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Avsen ( 556145 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @02:06AM (#7278949)
    We don't see that because the DMCA limit's ISPs of liability.

  • Sounds like what My old isp was doing. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by headbulb ( 534102 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @02:10AM (#7278966)
    But they had it in the Private IP address space... Yes they natted me. (wisp) They never advertised That They did have it. They had divx movies, divx tv shows, and Mp3's. They even had software, I got msn office off it.. (Yes I warezed it, Now I don't have it installed I use OpenOffice. In fact I deleted it)

    Did this isp advertise they had it?

    I can't read the article since It seems to be slashdoted.. (ZDnet?)

    Does anyone else's isp Do such a thing. Just wondering.
    • Aust ISP in 'world first' music industry court case

      By James Pearce, ZDNet Australia 21 October 2003

      In what is believed to be the first case of its kind in the world, the Australian music industry has listed an Internet service provider (ISP) as a respondent in a court case involving alleged music piracy.

      E-Talk Communications, trading as Comcen Internet Services found itself in Federal Court in front of Justice Brian Tamberlin in Sydney this afternoon charged with making money from the provis
  • Whom does the Australian "RIAA" represent? Is Kylie Minogue under the Aussie RIAA or the one we know and hate (which represents all the major labels).

  • Question (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ArbiterOne ( 715233 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @02:11AM (#7278968) Homepage
    If the ISP hosts, say, an Al Qaeda site, can they then be held responsible for "profiting" from terrorism?
    • And what if the ISP just has a proxy and using that proxy I download mp3s (practically from the ISP)? What does this mean legally speaking?
    • According to ARIA's line of reasoning, then I'd say that yes they could. Of course, this has yet to be established in the court room, and there are a lot of grey areas, even if you accept ARIA's argument. What is the webspace is provided for "free" as part of a standard package, or operating costs are funded through advertising like with some of the freebie hosting companies? That leads to another issue; either way, for the ISP to be found guilty, I would have thought that ARIA would have to show, beyond

  • Who is surprised? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jam244 ( 701505 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @02:11AM (#7278969) Homepage
    With all the publicity pumped up by the RIAA and the MPAA, is it any surprise that media companies around the world would start to do the same?

    Still, I'm not sure I agree that the ISP is "profiting" from the hosting of copyrighted material on one of its user's homepages. It may be allowing it, but there's no commercial gain whatsoever.
    • Guess it depends on if its on a user's homepage or if its hosting that someone has paid for. Guess it would be cleared up if the article worked.

  • for those who haven't RTFA:

    E-Talk Communications, trading as Comcen Internet Services, found itself in Federal Court in front of Justice Brian Tamberlin in Sydney, charged with making money from the provision of copyright-infringing music files. This is the first time the music industry has accused an ISP of being directly involved in piracy by allowing its infrastructure to be used for file-trading activities, according to Michael Speck, the manager of Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI), who led

    • But look: "[Com-cen] stands to benefit economically from the increased consumption of bandwidth that would result from an increase in the flow of traffic to the Web site and an increase in the number of sound recordings downloaded by visitors to the Web site due to the large size of music files" Does that sound like direct profitability to you? IMHO, this sounds more like an attempt by Aussie media giants to sue left and right, not unlike similar examples we have seen in the US (case: suing 12 year olds

  • In another news (Score:5, Funny)

    by future assassin ( 639396 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @02:27AM (#7279010)
    I'm sueing my city for building a road that allowed the thief who stole my car to get away.
    • No no. You'd sue the city for building a toll that collected money from the thief who stole your car, claiming that in doing so, it was providing road maintenence to him.

      Frivolous Lawsuit Number 58909081792873987123 has just been recorded...

  • RMS said it best (Score:5, Interesting)

    by little1973 ( 467075 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @02:31AM (#7279019)
    I have read many comments on /. about copyright, pro and contra, but I think RMS hit the nail on its head with his Reevaluating Copyright [gnu.org]:

    The copyright system developed along with the printing press. In the age of the printing press, it was unfeasible for an ordinary reader to copy a book. Copying a book required a printing press, and ordinary readers did not have one. What's more, copying in this way was absurdly expensive unless many copies were made--which means, in effect, that only a publisher could copy a book economically.

    So when the public traded to publishers the freedom to copy books, they were selling something which they *could not use*. Trading something you cannot use for something useful and helpful is always good deal. Therefore, copyright was uncontroversial in the age of the printing press, precisely because it did not restrict anything the reading public might commonly do.

    But the age of the printing press is gradually ending. The xerox machine and the audio and video tape began the change; digital information technology brings it to fruition. These advances make it possible for ordinary people, not just publishers with specialized equipment, to copy. And they do!

    I think the musicians have to perform live as they had to do a hundred years ago and as many musicians have to do now (except the so called stars). The era to become rich by selling millions of CDs without any real work is over.

    • Re:RMS said it best (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ejito ( 700826 )
      Amen.

      Getting lucky or just plain selling your soul to get kids to buy your horrible record -- well, that shouldn't even be an industry.

      People argue that the industry will die without ripping off people... well, that's plain BS. Like the parent posted, an industry survives on using new technology that people are not able to reproduce themselves.

      Sticking with 18 dollar CDs is like sticking with overpriced vinyl lps and casettes. The technology has a use, but trying to sell outdated technology for trem

    • Re:RMS said it best (Score:3, Insightful)

      by sir_cello ( 634395 )

      That's what _you_ think - ever tried asking the musicians ?

      This is a bad argument anyway. It's an undisputed fact that digital age makes it easier to copy, but that's not the point. Copyright is protecting the action of whether to copy or not (irrespective of how easy it is to make that copy), and therefore also protecting the investment placed in the creating the world.

      Just because it's digital doesn't mean that there was no time and effort gone into its production. The fact that it's digital just change
      • All of the bands that have songs on www.ozmp3.com don't make much money at all selling CDs. They make their money by doing live gigs. The only band that moves a large number of CD's gives 1/2 of the money to the local eye hospital. Some of the others have recovered the costs of getting the CDs made. Some haven't.

        Most of the musicians I've talked to lately are just doing covers and will be the next target by the RIAA. Its a copyright violation to do covers in most most cases and few places are paying f

    • Re:RMS said it best (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Yiliar ( 603536 )
      This is my belief as well. Consider that for most musicians the motivation to make music is to make money. High school and colledge kids make bands to play gigs and get a label interested and get rich and famous. This is all wrong, and 40 some odd years of this process have proven it false.

      It is common opinion that the major labels produce music according to formula that they believe will make hit records. Its all about the money. Its also true that many many record labels have come and gone trying to

      • What are the odds that a high school band will make it big? Its far less than the odds of making it as a NFL player (There are about 2000 NFL players, about 100 top 40 bands a year).

        The record industry doesn't sell music, they sell small plastic things which they have to produce and get into stores. They don't want too many songs out there because it confuses their customers (who are the record store). Their business model is messed up and they aren't about to fix it. Until someone comes along and brea

      • Re:RMS said it best (Score:3, Interesting)

        by pubjames ( 468013 )
        Consider that for most musicians the motivation to make music is to make money.

        Is it? I doubt it. I know quite a few musicians, and I can't think of a single one that does it "for the money". Most off them would almost certainly be better off financially doing something else.

        However, I expect many people in "the music industry", i.e. record company executives, do do it just "for the money". Which is sad.
      • -Consider that for most musicians the motivation to make music is to make money.

        No, the motivation behind most musicians is getting lots of ass. Mick Jagger is about the ugliest moose lips rascal I have ever seen and his latest girlfriend was a model in Brazil - he was tapping it like a keg and for all I know still is.

        Money is a nice side effect, but sex makes the world go round.

    • Re:RMS said it best (Score:3, Insightful)

      by SweenyTod ( 47651 )

      I think the musicians have to perform live as they had to do a hundred years ago and as many musicians have to do now (except the so called stars). The era to become rich by selling millions of CDs without any real work is over.

      Is it really over or has the general public started to fully seize on the idea that they don't have to pay for music, videos and e-books, and have basically decided not to?

      Just because 50 million people decide that what they're doing is right and justifiable doesn't mean that the

      • "Just because 50 million people decide that what they're doing is right and justifiable doesn't mean that they're right and justified."

        Yes, It does.

        What defines 'right' and 'justified'? Its all objective, so the only thing you have to go by is either personal oppinion or majority, and if the majority is doing something because they think its right and justified, it becomes so.

        The boston tea party wasnt 'right' or 'justified' in the eyes of brittain. Neither was Rosa Parks refusing to go to the back of th
        • "if the majority is doing something because they think its right and justified, it becomes so."

          Majorities do not need to better decisions. This is a "might makes right" argument, and the United States founding fathers were actually quite obsessed with limiting the power of the majority, because freedom and liberty require protections for the minority as well.

          This is a common misnomer of democracies, one that political scientists have tried to point out for years. Democratic processes do not lead to good

        • What defines 'right' and 'justified'? Its all objective, so the only thing you have to go by is either personal oppinion or majority, and if the majority is doing something because they think its right and justified, it becomes so.

          No, it's all subjective, not objective. Wrong word, wrong thought process, wrong everything.

          Different cultures have different standards for what is right and justified. All you've done is use half-baked logic to try to justify the classic "might makes right" viewpoint. That's

      • Re:RMS said it best (Score:3, Insightful)

        by pubjames ( 468013 )
        Just because 50 million people decide that what they're doing is right and justifiable doesn't mean that they're right and justified.

        That is a remarkable statement. Has a certain ring to it. I think I'm going to print it out and pin it to my wall.

        What do you think makes something "right and justified"? Even if you're religious, it doesn't mean you don't have to make these decisions for yourself. As far as I am aware Jesus never said anything about the morality of downloading Madonna's greatest hits off t
        • "Thou shalt not rip and burn" ...
          "Thou shalt not download" ...

          I think those must have been on the tablet that Moses dropped ... can't seem to find them in the Good Bok anywhere. ;-)

    • Re:RMS said it best (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      RMS is right. I found it very easy to copy GNU source code into my company's $10K/CPU product.

    • Apples and Oranges (Score:3, Insightful)

      by thales ( 32660 )
      Copying songs isn't the subject of the music industry law suits. Distrubiting copyrighted material by allowing others to make a coppies of material that you are offering is.
    • RMS: What's more, copying in this way was absurdly expensive unless many copies were made--which means, in effect, that only a publisher could copy a book economically.

      This still doesn't justify copyright. There was more than one company that owned a printing press, and without copyright rules a popular text would be typeset and printed by many of them at the same time, and the publishers would have no obligation to pay the author or even make sure that the printed words were accurate to the author's Urt
    • I think the musicians have to perform live as they had to do a hundred years ago and as many musicians have to do now

      So, in your opinion, there is no artistic merit to recording art; only performance art? What about written art, is it not the same as recording art? Should only lecturers get paid, now?

      The era to become rich by selling millions of CDs without any real work is over.

      The number of musicians that get rich by selling millions of CDs is rather small. And I think you might want to revise y

  • Common Carrier Status (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pendersempai ( 625351 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @02:47AM (#7279063)
    The ISP is being sued for 'profiting' (by hosting it) from a site which distributes copyright-infringing material.

    Auto manufacturers profit when their cars are bought by drug dealers for the purpose of smuggling drugs. Handgun makers profit when someone buys their gun and uses it in a murder. Gardening stores profit when a customer buys large quantities of fertilizer, makes a bomb, and blows up large federal buildings in Oklahoma City.

    Should the auto manufacturer, handgun maker, and gardening store be legally liable for the crimes of their customers? Should they even be responsible for following their customers around to make sure they do nothing illegal?

    • Re:Common Carrier Status (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jhunsake ( 81920 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @03:02AM (#7279105) Journal
      It depends if they have any knowledge of the intended use of their product. Of course the article isn't available, so I don't know if the ISP was given notice to remove the stuff or not.
      • But continuing the analogies, ISP should not be responsible for removing the content, just like Ford is not responsible for taking back the car from the drug dealers when it becomes known what they do. In the rational world where the spirit of the laws is followed, the copyright owner would contact the site owner and ask to remove the offending material. If the webmaster refuses, the copyright owner should sue. If he wins, the court would order the ISP to take down the site. But it no longer happens the rig
    • And the drug dealers are not on the auto manufacturer's property. The drug dealers did not agree to some kind of EULA or TOS saying that they would not deal drugs. The auto manufacturer did not have full knowledge that the drug dealers were using their cars for dealing drugs. The drug dealer can pick any car to deal drugs from, there is nothing special about any particular car.

      There is a big difference between your examples and the ISP. And as far as the fertilizer goes, that is a controlled product, a
    • Auto manufacturers profit when their cars are bought by drug dealers for the purpose of smuggling drugs.

      But no more profit than if their cars are bought by little old ladies for the purpose of driving to church once a week. (Less, actually, because drug traffickers will more often pay a lump sum in case and little old ladies will more often arrange long-term financing through the dealer.)

      Handgun makers profit when someone buys their gun and uses it in a murder.

      But no more profit than if the handgun is

  • proves... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mantera ( 685223 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @03:01AM (#7279098)
    that's it's one thing to be an individual downloading music and stuff, and another being a commercial entity profitting from piracy.

  • This will seriously effect Aussie Culture! (Score:3, Funny)

    by ratfynk ( 456467 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @03:04AM (#7279109) Journal
    If Aussie ISPs stop file sharing does this mean now I will have to pay for all the beautiful Rolf Harris tunes? Or will I need to order my Didgerydoodoo music through A&B sound? Mate its gettin' hard to get good music anymore!

  • How far can it go? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fishd ( 114843 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @03:05AM (#7279111)
    I once bought a pirated CD in a pub, can the landlord be sued?

    Actually, thinking further... if I didn't work then I couldn't afford to buy the pirate CD so surely my employer is ultimately responsible, after all they gave me the money to commit this foul act... I'm going to sue my employer for making me a criminal!!!

    Or, should I quit my job, become unemployed, claim state benefits, buy a pirate CD and then sue the government?!?!?

    When will people learn, the internet is neither inherently good nor evil... it's just a new medium... if kids weren't inside on their PC's pirating CD's they'd be out in the playground trading CDR's stuffed full of music... you gonna sue the school at that point?
    • I once bought a pirated CD in a pub, can the landlord be sued?

      Yes, if the landlord knowingly had a corner of the pub designated for the selling of pirated CDs.

      Actually, thinking further... if I didn't work then I couldn't afford to buy the pirate CD so surely my employer is ultimately responsible, after all they gave me the money to commit this foul act... I'm going to sue my employer for making me a criminal!!!

      And the government printed the money, so all crimes that involve the exchange of money are

  • Mmm - Telstra (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tqft ( 619476 ) <ianburrows_au@nOsPAM.yahoo.com> on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @03:10AM (#7279127) Homepage Journal
    I want ARIA to try and sue Telstra/BigPond for profiting from supply of the underlying capacity, and knowingly allowing their users to file swap.

    Who would win? (Googlefight predicts aria, but maybe becuase fo their big award ceremony last night)

    PS: Telstra has been close to "busted" before for tapping phones of customers who complained about them. So don't think they are a bunch of wimps who woould not fight.
  • A few months ago I looked into running a peercast strem of local original music from my city (Canberra, Australia).

    One thing that struck me when I put out a call for interest was the willingness of local ISP's to host nodes.

    Bear in mind the project was intended to be totally legit and din't proceed because too many of the local artists were already signed up by the copyright agency APRA.

    Anything that makes people download more is in the ISP's interest if they've worked their cost base out properly.

    Havin
  • Well, the solution of sueing to stop piracy is still the wrong avenue to take, but at least now the music industry is sueing someone that can afford (to the extent of ability to pay, not ability to survive through, as I imagine a several million $ judgement would bankrupt most companies) the insane award they'll probably be granted. Even though ISPs cannot be expected to restrict and monitor their users as the industry would like, since it would raise about a million free speech/privacy/etc concerns. But he
  • I was just wondering... based on the logic being presented by the plaintiffs, would AT&T be held responsible in court if I played my MP3s to friends over the phone while they listened in a giant conference call?

  • I actually went to the site that is the cause of all this: www.mp3s4free.net [mp3s4free.net] and found that it doesn't even appear to be hosting pirated music. It is simply searchable database of mp3 files that are hosted elsewhere on the Internet. It looks primarily like the site is profiting from capturing email addresses and advertising rather than from the music itself.
    What I was quite impressed about was that the site is still up. Many ISPs would have killed the site straight away - assuming guilt rather than inno
  • "In my experience investigating the revenue structure of Web sites such as [mp3s4free.net] the ISP hosting the Web site, [Com-cen], stands to benefit economically from the increased consumption of bandwidth that would result from an increase in the flow of traffic to the Web site and an increase in the number of sound recordings downloaded by visitors to the Web site due to the large size of music files," Speck's affadavit.

    The way this dumbass words it, it sounds like he's saying the ISP is making big buc

  • Implicit marketing of piracy? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Empiric ( 675968 ) * on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @03:35AM (#7279187)
    I was a little taken aback earlier tonight when I was shopping in a Target, and among their selection of CD-R and writable media, was an image of a teenage girl, with a quiet smile on her face, with the caption "They call me Mixtape Molly".

    Presumably, Target understands that these mixtapes are most likely to be mixes of copyrighted material. It was a little odd seeing what seemed like a subtle marketing piece for a substantial market for CD-R's, but which presumably had illegal activity underpinning it, presented by one of the biggest and most highly-regarded retail chains.

    I think the collision between companies purportedly harmed by piracy and those benefitting from it is going to be a lot more widespread than the mentioned case, soon. It has become a mainstream cultural phenomenon.
    • Well on the other hand, there is nothing illegal about making mix-tapes (or mix-CDs) for one's own use. It's all covered in fair use. That is, unless you need to break some copy protection in order to copy the track to make the mix tape. In which case you violate the DMCA so you get to go to prison.

      Great system, eh?

  • stopRIAAlawsuits.com (Score:2, Informative)

    by chatooya ( 718043 )
    The American backlash against the filesharing suits seems to be gaining steam ( Stop RIAA Lawsuits Coalition [stopriaalawsuits.com]), I wonder if the same will start happening down under as they crack down.

    At some point, there needs to be a global citizen response to a global entertainment industry. The corporations are using all the tactics they have available in each country and consumers should do the same. The laws they're trying to cram into the FTAA [stopftaa.org] are on a new level.

    "The draft intellectual property rights chapter i

  • Not first case of its kind (Score:3, Informative)

    by miu ( 626917 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @03:55AM (#7279234) Homepage Journal
    I think Harlan Ellison did it first. Harlan sued AOL over posts of his copyrighted material to Usenet. [com.com]
  • As long as we're going after ISP's, lets sue Google! After all, they directly help in providing access to pirated software [google.com], illegal MP3s [google.com] and movies [google.com] to boot! But screw the minor offenses. Let's get some of that child porn action [google.com] going!

    I mean really, how screwy is this? Last I saw, police ticketed the lawbreakers on the roadway, not the roadway itself or the owners of the roadway. Now wouldn't that be great? "Well Govenor, since we caught people speeding on the state roadway, we're going to fine you, not the
  • While I don't agree that ISP's are responsible for what their subscribers do, they don't exactly discourage piracy.

    Sure there are clauses in the Terms and Conditions when you sign up, but some ISP's will advertise how many MP3's you can download in there usage caps. Sure it could be for legitimate MP3s, but really, what do you expect a user to do if there told they could download 300 MP3's a month! on the [X] plan.

    • This relates to another annoyance with many ISPs, in that they seem to dislike outgoing traffic. For example, by banning servers. This makes it harder for me to distribute my own creations, while it's perfectly OK to leech anything I can find off the net.

  • The body of this article is completely wrong.

    The site in question does not host infringing content, it is merely a bunch of links to other sites where allegedly infringing content can allegedly be had. It's bad enough they're suing the operator of the site, it's worse that they're suing his ISP. If the music industry succeeds in criminalising this type of activity, you could be sued simply for linking to kazaalite.com or napster.com

  • I had expected the RIAA to pull that stunt from the beginning.

    Im suprised it was somewhere else first..

    It's not valid, but still expected. ISP's should ( do? ) have common carrier status.. So unless the feds are looking, they shouldnt be held liable for their customers actions.

  • Next Step: (Score:3, Interesting)

    by El ( 94934 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @10:57AM (#7281526)
    Sue the syringe manufactures for "profiting from the proliferation of drugs." Then sue prisons for "profiting from the proliferation of crime." Next, sue abortion clinics for "profiting from the proliferation of rape." Later, sue CDROM manufacturers, CD burner manufacturers, and MP3 player manufacturers for "profiting from the proliferation of online music"! Where does it all stop?

  • ConCen are claiming that the site was a search engine [zdnet.com.au] and no music was actually hosted on their servers:

    The Internet company targeted by the music industry over alleged copyright breaches, ComCen, has denied it hosted any copyright-infringing MP3 files on its servers and claims the Web site cited in the civil action brought against it acted only as a search engine.

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