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The Underbelly Redemption

UPDATE: 10am: The Shawshank Redemption is set to screen on Nine in Victoria tonight.

As indicated by this site earlier the prison film will air on Nine at 8:30pm. Initial plans for a brief Underbelly: A Special Announcement will now not air.

A planned Underbelly encore on Sunday night at 10pm in Victoria is replaced by the movie Rush Hour 2.

The schedule changes follow the ruling by the Victorian Supreme Court that Underbelly could not air in the state, or be offered on the internet by Nine. It will still screen interstate.

Nine is still appealing the decision and hoping it will air next week. Once that has been sorted, Nine will likely address the obligations to its advertisers, believed to have paid $40,000 per 30 second nationally. Nine had expected between 800,000 to one million Victorian viewers alone, meaning the ban jeopardises an estimated $3.9 million in advertising revenue.

The ban completely unsticks Nine’s key chance to hit back at Seven in the first week of the 2008 ratings.

The series is expected to be uploaded and downloaded illegally within an hour of airing on torrent sites.

Victorian viewers living on the South Australian or NSW borders can also pick up legal television signals.

Anyone found in possession of unauthorised copies of the Underbelly series faces up to five years’ imprisonment or a fine of up to $60,500 under the Copyright Act and in Victoria, they would also be in contempt of court.

Sources: Herald Sun, Daily Telegraph

6 Responses

  1. for gods sake Nine, after all the publicity surrounding this show, all the disappointment at it being cancelled in Vic and all you can come up with to replace it is some movie thats been on tv 20 times plus already! Don’t get me wrong, its a great movie, one of my favourites, but please it has been repeated literally dozens of times, at least show a ‘first run’ movie!!!

  2. daniel, I don’t think so, of course It was nine I was refering to, there is no way a film which has been on FTA TV a number of times,is also available on dvd is going to rate ANYWHERE near what Underbelly in Melbourne would of tonight, I reckon even SBS will come close to beating nine tonight.

  3. (Tried to post this comment this morning, but something went into failure mode at Blogger 🙂

    I’m no expert by any means on copyright law, but to my knowledge, simply being “found in possession” of unauthorised copies of copyrighted works does not carry criminal penalties, a $65,500 fine OR imprisonment.

    Those infringing copies must be “for sale or hire”.

    That paragraph is a major inaccuracy on the part of the Herald Sun and sounds like it’s been put there at someone’s request…

    As for contempt of court, merely possessing a copy of Underbelly does NOT place a civilian at risk of being found in contempt. You would have to go against the court’s wishes and PUBLISH it. So those creating torrents for it – if they could be caught, which is highly unlikely – could be found in contempt, and so technically could those downloading it via BitTorrent as they are also “publishing” in the process of downloading it.

    But if I’m caught on the street with a DVD marked “Underbelly” in my bag, nothing will happen to me. Think about it – all publicity materials for the show are also banned, meaning that the free DVD that came with The Sunday Age a few weeks ago would land everyone who’s got a copy in jail on contempt charges 🙂

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