THE
Federal Court yesterday became the theatre for a fiercely contested
legal battle that could mark the end of the illegal movie and music
download free-for-all for hundreds of thousands of internet users, and
leave Australia's third-largest internet company facing millions of
dollars worth of damages claims.
A group
representing 34 music and movie entertainment companies including
Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Disney, Roadshow Films,
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Seven Group, presented its
opening arguments in its copyright law suit against Perth-based iiNet.
The group, the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT)
alleged that iiNet authorised its customers to commit at least 96,000
acts of copyright infringement against the group linked to the
distribution of movie and music files on peer-to-peer networks.
A successful outcome would be a major prize for the movie studios.
It would give them a legal basis to make ISPs liable for acts of
copyright infringement carried out by their customers and force them to
make drastic change to their practices to avoid copyright liability.
A major part of the case turns on whether it can be proved that
iiNet authorised customers to infringe by failing to take "reasonable
steps" to stop them illegally sharing files.
AFACT's legal representatives Gilbert & Tobin yesterday
presented evidence from a 59-week investigation by Copenhagen-based
firm DeTecNet.
AFACT's lead barrister, Tony Bannon SC, told the court that DeTecNet
discovered that iiNet customers illegally shared 29,000 copyright works
from 86 entertainment catalogues presented by the foundation's members.
The court briefly became a cinema as Mr Bannon played a short
sequence from the movie Batman Begins to demonstrate the quality of the
copyright works to Justice Dennis Cowdroy and the Sydney court.
The hearing continues today.
The Source:
