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.
Supreme Court Allows Multibillion-Dollar Class Action Lawsuit To Proceed Against Meta
The Supreme Court is allowing a multibillion-dollar class action investors' lawsuit to proceed against Facebook parent Meta, stemming from the privacy scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica political consulting firm.
The justices heard arguments in November in Meta's bid to shut down the lawsuit. On Friday, they decided that they were wrong to take up the case in the first place.
The high court dismissed the company's appeal, leaving in place an appellate ruling allowing the case to go forward.
Investors allege that Meta did not fully disclose the risks that Facebook users' personal information would be misused by Cambridge Analytica, a firm that supported Donald Trump 's first successful Republican presidential campaign in 2016.
Inadequacy of the disclosures led to two significant price drops in the price of the company's shares in 2018, after the public learned about the extent of the privacy scandal, the investors say.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone said the company was disappointed by the court's action. "The plaintiff's claims are baseless and we will continue to defend ourselves as this case is considered by the District Court," Stone said in an emailed statement.
Meta already has paid a $5.1 billion fine and reached a $725 million privacy settlement with users.
Cambridge Analytica had ties to Trump political strategist Steve Bannon. It had paid a Facebook app developer for access to the personal information of about 87 million Facebook users. That data was then used to target U.S. voters during the 2016 campaign.
The lawsuit is one of two high court cases involving class-action lawsuits against tech companies. The justices also are wrestling with whether to shut down a class action against Nvidia.... Read More