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Appeal against iiNET set for August

The court appeal over between movie studios and the Seven Network against iiNET will be heard in August.

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The Federal Court appeal TV between movie studios and the Seven Network against iiNET will be heard on August 2 – 5 before Justices Emmett, Jagot and Nicholas.

It follows a ruling in favour of the Internet Service Provider that found it was not responsible for the actions of its users who downloaded copyrighted films and television.

iiNET CEO Michael Malone said he was confident the Federal Court would reaffirm its earlier judgment clearing the company of copyright breaches.

“We go into this latest round legal round anticipating we will come out in an even stronger position than when we won February,” he said.

“Justice Cowdroy’s judgment was unequivocally in our favour and we are confident the Full Court will confirm his ruling and strengthen it.”

Mr Malone said iiNet had filed a Notice of Contention that also seeks to overturn aspects of the case where the Court did not find in its favour.

“Neither the original case nor this latest appeal will stop piracy – even if in the unlikely event they won the appeal,” he said.

“More legal proceedings are not the solution.

“New approaches and models, like Hulu and Freezone, are the most effective solution to the problem, as acknowledged by the studios in the original proceedings, not more court hearings.

“We continue to stand ready to work with the film and television industry to develop, implement and promote these new approaches and models.”

A recent News Ltd. survey of more than 7000 self-confessed illegal downloaders found two-thirds would pay a small fee for legal downloads. Television shows were the most popular downloaded content.

11 Responses

  1. I wonder how the Channels would accept services like Hulu and Freezone, setting up in Australia, would they complain? or would they welcome it? Because iTunes waits for the show to air on FTA before they available to purchase.

    I would like to see an Australian version of Hulu or Freezone, I’d be willing to pay to see the shows I want to see instead of waiting for them to air, then they are chopped up for advertisements, then relegated to a dead time slot just because it doesn’t regularly rate high enough.

  3. Or blame the makers of the PCs for providing the means to access the Internet. Or the electricity companies for providing the power to those PCs.

    This case is ridiculous.

  4. this whole thing makes no sense, saying the isp’s are responsible for people choosing to download pirate tv shows, is like saying that australia post is responsible if someone sends a pirated dvd in the mail.

  5. In my opinion, its a relatively simple solution, a Hulu like service, that is in freezone (or just recent content in freezone and other older content not in freezone, could be determined by ISP, as they should be allowed to cache the video content locally to make it affordable and easy for them to manage kinda like steam, but local ISP is first port of call for content) with limited local/targeted ads or subscription fees to cover costs. Long live VOD.

  7. Surely you would have thought Seven would have learnt after the C7 lawsuit against everyone in the known TV universe not to get into these kind of legal issues.

    I wonder what their shareholders are thinking !

  10. I see this as a public policy issue the court will want to avoid – the court won’t impose a duty for all ISPs to stamp out potential illegal downolading… not only is it not feasible, but it would create financial pressure on ISPs to set up safeguards, and reduce demand for the internet service regardless for fear of being prosecuted.

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