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.
House Calls Via TV and Streamers: A Rundown of The Season’s Doctor Dramas
No matter your ailment, there are plenty of TV doctors waiting to treat you right now on a selection of channels and streamers.
Whether it's Noah Wyle putting on his stethoscope for the first time since "ER," Morris Chestnut graduating to head doctor, Molly Parker making her debut in scrubs or Joshua Jackson trading death for life on a luxury cruise, new American hospital dramas have something for everyone.
There's also an outsider trying to make a difference in "Berlin ER," as Haley Louise Jones plays the new boss of a struggling German hospital's emergency department. The show's doors slide open to patients Wednesday on Apple TV+.
These shows all contain the DNA of classic hospital dramas โ and this guide will help you get the TV treatment you need.
"Berlin ER"
Dr. Suzanna "Zanna" Parker has been sent to run the Krank, which is only just being held together by hardened โ and authority-resistant โ medical staff and supplies from a sex shop. The result is an unflinching drama set in an underfunded, underappreciated and understaffed emergency department, where the staff is as traumatized as the patients, but hide it much better.
From former real-life ER doc Samuel Jefferson and also starring Slavko Popadiฤ, ลafak ลengรผl, Aram Tafreshian and Samirah Breuer, the German-language show is not for the faint of heart.
Jones says she eventually got used to the blood and gore on the set.
"It's gruesome in the beginning, highly unnerving. And then at some point, it's just the most normal thing in the world," she explains. "That's flesh. That's the rest of someone's leg, you know, let's just move on and have coffee or whatever."
As it's set in the German clubbing capital, the whole city... Read More