Usenet and rapidshare are useless without paid accounts (I have no idea about megaupload) and history has shown the majority refuse to sign up to a paid service beyond their internet fees.

Search pages dedicated to finding any media or software uploaded to these services abound, all one needs is Winzip or Winrar and some very basic pc skills. The dedicated p2p users that do heavily download and seed are easy fodder for AFACT I have noticed via the Whirlpool forums many p2p users jumping ship and using other alternatives.

I say again a generation of users that have never paid for music,movies and software are something AFACT seem to think with their current business models are going to change overnight with a court case.

Threats of disconnection ect will just fall on deaf ears IMHO ISPS hosting free downloads like the ABC’s IView and Foxtel finally jumping on the bandwagon for downloads (how successful that will be is another question) The ABC model up to now has been hugely popular. Have to laugh it takes a tax payer funded media organization to show private media moguls what the future holds.

We have a generation of tech savy surfers now, all brought up on free content no court case is going to change their mindset.

That’s what the assisting QC/SCs are for. Explain the concept. If iiNet let the judge establish an erroneous viewpoint then thats their issue/stupidity.

This case is blown out of proportion. If AFACT win then they will lose it on appeal. If they lose then they will go back to harrassing the fed govt for legislation. Be more afraid of conroy dude.

I may be wrong, but I thought the issue with this case was that of authorisation of the download?

Usually it’s the uploading of data from a userend that they try to get people on. They get the IP’s when users upload chunks of data to them.

I guess AFACT are going to contest that by not disconnecting users, burning down their houses and deporting them, iiNet are not doing enough to ensure their customers don’t download pirate material.

iiNet are arguing that it’s not their responsibility to do so and they aren’t doing any more or less then every other ISP in Australia (Exetel and their 3 strike policy aside).

Also if this does end up winning, then all its going to mean is that the companies pull out of being ISPs as it would be pretty impossible to convince someone to get an unlimited/20GB limit on their account when they can’t download anything illegal!

ISP’s can throttle p2p to practically nothing and make it unusable (Dodo are great at this) but it won’t do anything for newsgroups/http or ftp transfers.

Currently all they are worried about is BT because that’s what most people are using these days. BT is easily throttled so I guess AFACT see that as a (temporary) solution.

Asking these seemingly dumb questions means that he receives information that can be challenged by the other side if it is wrong in some way.

I can’t help but ask why Cowdroy interested in AFACT showing how other ISP’s allow their users to use the internet when he’s already rejected iiNet’s proposal to show other ISP’s handle AFACT’s complaints in the same manner.

Yesterday was the first day of the current hearing but it wasn’t the first day Cowdroy, AFACT and iiNet have appeared in court together.

I guess I’m just concerned that he’s just going to get an AFACT ‘hey watch this, 3 clicks adn you just downloaded ONE HUNDRED BAZILLION DOLLARS OF MOVIES!’ explanation which will detract from the point being contested of how are iiNet responsible?

so better to play dumb, get the facts from the parties to the dispute and then make a decision.

Perhaps at the beggining but after already specifying the evidence criteria that will be used to argue the case, I’d have hoped the judge would at least have had some idea on the technology. What basis has he been making his previous rulings on?!

I imagine the video presentation was some guy clicking on a torrent link and then downloading a movie. It’s not going to be much different in a ‘live’ demonstration.

While it is interesting that an illegal activity might happen in court, you’ve got to remember that AFACT are representing half the movie industry so it won’t be hard for them to obtain copyright permission to download and temporarily distribute the file as well.

That’s true I didn’t think of that, does that mean that for the time that the download was active, it would be legal for everyone else to download it from them?

I may be wrong, but I thought the issue with this case was that of authorisation of the download? As in the iinet allow it, if someone else provides the connection to the court then doesnt this mean that they are authorising the download. I also thought that they were using this video as a demonstration to show the iinet users which were downloading Batman, which is why the judge asked which other ISP’s were downloading it? Maybe I am showing too much faith in the judge.

Providing that iinet have hired a decent laywer, then the underlying concepts of the case mean that they should win. I’m not saying file sharing is write, but its clearly not iinet’s fault.

Also if this does end up winning, then all its going to mean is that the companies pull out of being ISPs as it would be pretty impossible to convince someone to get an unlimited/20GB limit on their account when they can’t download anything illegal! Also I can’t even see how it is possible to police it.

Judges have an obligation to decide cases on the facts and not be influenced by any preconceived notions. Asking these seemingly dumb questions means that he receives information that can be challenged by the other side if it is wrong in some way. the alternative would be for the judge to spend a week explaining everything he knows about the Internet and that would open him to allegations of bias if he didn’t get it exactly right.

so better to play dumb, get the facts from the parties to the dispute and then make a decision.

For me, surely he is just asking why AFACT is picking on iinet? Which is a sensible question and is going to be a major stumbling block for AFACT.

The answer is simple, iiNet aren’t Telstra and AFACT are probably banking on the fact they don’t have billions to pump into a legal defense. iiNet are at the top end of the middle sized ISP’s in Australia and are therefore easy to make an example out of.

Not sure if Justice Cowdroy would be happy with this explanation though.

Is this just not a request to see the actual downloading in real life. As in, how can AFACT not show that they have faked the download of a video from iinet? This would be awesome, assuming that iinet do not provide the access to the courthouse!

I imagine the video presentation was some guy clicking on a torrent link and then downloading a movie. It’s not going to be much different in a ‘live’ demonstration.

While it is interesting that an illegal activity might happen in court, you’ve got to remember that AFACT are representing half the movie industry so it won’t be hard for them to obtain copyright permission to download and temporarily distribute the file as well.

Short of seeing it with his own eyes I’m not sure what a live demonstration is going to achieve other then AFACT’s lawyers going ‘OMG judge see how easy it is! WE NEED TO BAN THE INTERNET!’

I’d like to believe AFACT aren’t going to win but they seem to have picked up a pretty clueless judge so I’m thinking it could go either way. It’s much easy to run a fear campaign when someone doesn’t understand the basic principles of the technology.

I think there are different ways to determine the quotes as well

Following a video presentation by AFACT’s barrister QC Bannon of the group’s investigator Nigel Carson downloading Warner Bros’ movie Batman Begins, Cowdroy asked if he could be shown what other ISPs were facilitating file sharing.

“Can you show me, Mr Bannon, how many other internet providers are providing the same sorts of information? What other ones right now are doing this?” asked Justice Cowdroy.

For me, surely he is just asking why AFACT is picking on iinet? Which is a sensible question and is going to be a major stumbling block for AFACT.

“I’d be interested to see this in real life,” Cowdroy said.

“This is actually a video of what he did at the time, so it’s not online now,” Bannon explained, adding that it may in the future give a live demonstration in court.

Is this just not a request to see the actual downloading in real life. As in, how can AFACT not show that they have faked the download of a video from iinet? This would be awesome, assuming that iinet do not provide the access to the courthouse!

At the end of the day, the judge is never going to rule in favour of AFACT. This is the wrong court case for them to be fighting, but as part of the their master plan they need to lose this case so they can bitch and moan to the government about file sharing again. And if they do win by some amazing incompetence then it will just get thrown out on appeal (the stupid judge appeal). This is the wrong fight for AFACT.