Rights holders suffer setback in battle against ISPs
20 April 2012
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Peter Leung, Hong Kong
In a unanimous ruling today, the Australian High Court found that service provider iiNET did not authorise users’ infringement despite not acting on notices of infringement from copyright holders
Though some attorneys found the decision unsurprising, others said it is a big setback in rights holders’ fight to protect their intellectual property.
Safe harbour provision
The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) sued iiNET in November 2008, alleging that the ISP should not qualify for the safe harbour provisions of the Copyright Act as it did not do enough to prevent users from using the BitTorrent file-sharing software to infringe their works.
On February 4 2010, the Federal Court decided in favour of iiNET . In a 123-page decision , Justice Dennis Cowdroy said that iiNET was not liable because it did not authorise or encourage the infringement.
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