The Australian film and television has filed a lawsuit against Australian ISP iiNet, claiming the Internet service provider has not stopped subscribers from pirating movies and other copyrighted content.
The lawsuit was filed in the Federal Court by Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Seven Network and Disney, with the support of the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT).
"iiNet refused to address this illegal behaviour and did nothing to prevent the continuation of the infringements by the same customers," AFACT executive director Adrianne Pecotic told Computerworld Australia. "iiNet has an obligation under the law to take steps to prevent further known copyright infringement via its network."
A five-month investigation launched by the AFACT said thousands of copyright infringement cases were monitored by iiNet subscribers. iiNet officials responded by saying the ISP does not condone piracy by its subscribers, but cannot simply disconnect alleged file sharers unless evidence is provided.
iiNet has been ordered at least 18 times to disconnect subscribers or do something about the piracy, but it seems the Australian ISP remains hesitant to take action.
"They (AFACT) send us a list of IP addresses and say 'this IP address was involved in a breach on this date,' said iiNET CEO Michael Malone. We look at that (and) say 'well what do you want us to do with this? We can't release the person's details to you on the basis of an allegation and we can't go and kick the customer off on the basis of an allegation from someone else.' So we say 'you are alleging the person has broken the law; we're passing it to the police. Let them deal with it.'"
The movie studios want a judge to force iiNet to prevent customers from using BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer file sharing services to engage in copyright infringement. Furthermore, AFACT wants to receive the IP addresses of alleged copyright infringers for possible legal action.
