By Rohan Sullivan
SYDNEY (AP) --An Australian Internet provider cannot be held responsible for copyright violations when its users illegally download movies, a judge said Thursday in a ruling against major film companies.
The decision was likely the first of its kind, Federal Court Justice Dennis Cowdroy said, throwing out the suit by major film companies that sought to force the provider to stop its customers from downloading illegally or throw them off the Internet.
A group of 34 movie companies, including Australian branches of Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox, claimed Australia’s third-largest Internet provider, iiNet, breached their film copyrights by failing to stop users from illegally sharing files.
Federal Court Justice Dennis Cowdroy ruled that while iiNet knew its users violated copyrights and failed to stop them, that did not mean that the provider was authorizing those breaches and it could not therefore be held accountable for them.
“I find that the mere provision of access to the Internet is not the means of infringement,” Cowdroy said in a summary of his 200-page ruling.
He said iiNet did not have the power to stop illegal downloads.
iiNet Managing Director Michael Malone welcomed the ruling and said his company wanted to work with the film companies to find ways iiNet users could access movies legally.
Neil Gane, the executive director of the industry group that represents the film companies, said the outcome was disappointing and an appeal would be considered.
Cowdroy said there was ample evidence that infringement of the movie companies’ copyrights was occurring on a large scale worldwide but that Internet providers should not be targeted for it “merely because it is felt that something must be done.”
“An ISP such as iiNet provides a legitimate communication facility which is neither intended nor designed to infringe copyright,” he said.
The judge said that as far as he was aware, the ruling was the first in the world in a suit claiming that an Internet service provider was authorizing copyright infringement by its users who engaged in illegal downloads.
Cowdroy said he allowed the proceedings to be published on Twitter – a first for Australia – because there had been so much interest in the case in Australia and overseas.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More