Australian High Court Rules Against Studios in Major Piracy Case

Posted on April 21, 2012

Australia's highest court just dealt a severe blow to the motion picture and television industry. The BBC reports that the court upheld a lower court ruling that the country's third largest internet service provider iiNet was not liable for copyright violations by its users who had illegally uploaded copies of popular films and television shows.

The High Court ruling was unanimous in its ruling that the ISP did not authorize the illegal downloads, nor was it able to stop piracy by its users. The case originated over thousands of illegal downloads by customers of popular tv shows and films by using a file sharing program. iiNet did not authorize or participate in the downloads, but said it was unable to police all illegal activity by its users. The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft group was the plaintiff in the case. It consists of 34 film, TV and music companies who are extremely unhappy with the ruling.