ECJ, Australian rulings show differing views on copyright

Life

20 April 2012

Two decisions in foreign courts this week could point the way to how Ireland’s copyright laws may be reformed. The European Court of Justice, which recently ruled against content filtering as a strategy against piracy, found that Swedish law has no provision to allow Internet service providers to withold customer details in cases of suspected copyright infringement.

The ECJ ruling now puts Swedish ISP ePhone under pressure to disclose information about their customers as book publishers try to identify individuals suspected of sharing material illegally. Previously rightsholders had to petition the courts to make a case for IP addresses to be released to them, now a situation could arise where addresses could be released on-demand with little justification.

Meanwhile in Australia, a long-running lawsuit against the country’s second-largest ISP has ended in a defeat for the entertainment industry, which sought to hold the ISP liable for copyright infringement on its network.

IiNet, was being sued by 34 entertainment companies, including Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. and Disney, for allegedly failing to stop peer-to-peer file sharing of their copyright material.

Australia’s High Court found that even though iiNet’s customers could engage in illegal file sharing, the ISP itself did not "authorise" any copyright infringement. The High Court’s decision is final, meaning the entertainment industry can’t appeal.

The entertainment industry wanted iiNet to send its customers a warning to delete infringing content made available on BitTorrent, and if the file was still online after a week, to cut off the customer’s Internet connection.

Anne Flahvin, media and communications counsel for Policy Australia, a legal and policy consultancy, said the ruling now sets "a very high bar" for copyright owners to meet in order to spur ISPs into anti-piracy actions, even more than three-strikes laws in other jurisdictions. "I think the main battlefront will also shift now to political pressure on the government," Flahvin said.

IDG News Service

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