Advanced Television

Anti-piracy group drops claim against ISP

October 7, 2009

Days before the BitTorrent piracy case involving Aussie ISP iiNet goes to court, anti-piracy group AFACT has made a second legal retreat. The group, which represents Hollywood movie studios, has now dropped its claims that iiNet engaged in primary acts of copyright infringement.

Next week, the case of Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Disney Enterprises and the Seven Network (all under the umbrella of AFACT), against Australian ISP iiNet will come to court.

AFACT's position in the case is that iiNet "failed to take reasonable steps, including enforcing its own terms and conditions, to prevent known unauthorised use of copies of the companies' films and TV programmes by iiNet's customers via its network." AFACT previously demanded disconnection for those iiNet subscribers alleged to have infringed their copyrights by sharing material using BitTorrent. iiNet refused to comply and legal action against them followed.

AFACT's assertion is that iiNet committed secondary acts of infringement, i.e it is responsible for the copyright infringing actions of its subscribers (something it denies). AFACT had earlier claimed that iiNet engaged in primary infringement too.

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