teh cliky

The Australian film and television industry has launched a major legal action against one of Australia's largest internet service providers for allegedly allowing its users to download pirated movies and TV shows.

seems a bit harsh, everyone knows optus is way moar into pirating

ah what
this sucks

HAHAHA

"We identified thousands of infringements of copyright by iiNet's customers and we provided iiNet with about 18 separate notices of those infringements and, unfortunately, iiNet did not do anything to address that copyright infringement," she said.

I don't see a problem. They're trying to bypass the law, so it's fair that iiNet ignores them.

In the context of TV shows, maybe if they didn't screw over viewers with long delays after US broadcasts, putting stuff like Heroes at 10.30pm, and randomly postponing shows for months .. then maybe people wouldn't have a reason to download anything.

This is super scary because it might set a precedent for whether or not ISPs are forced to take action on the possibly-bulls*** claims of Big Media.

eg, IIRC the current legal process that iiNet and most other ISPs have been relying on is that the burden of proof is on the Big Media to go to the po-lice with all the evidence and get an actual warrant before they can provide any information back to the media companies.

Obviously this is a lot like hard actual work and costs real money, so Big Media decides to just send vaguely threatening letters in the hope that the ISPs will just dumbly forward to their customers, absorbing the expense of tracking them down and hopefully scaring customers into stopping.

IANAL so I am not sure what really is going on though. Any lawyer types want to weigh in?

Yeh, I really don't like the idea that Big Media might get to say whether or not I get internets.

then maybe people wouldn't have a reason to download anything.

Yeah, if anything they should go "oh hey, looks like there is demand for our product, lets sell it overseas post haste!" but instead go "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa someone took my ice cream"

sucks, I just signed up with iinet in my new place because they are the-bomb for torrents

I always get super fast speeds on iinet compared to when I was on the tpg 150gb plan (currently only 100gb iinet plan)

my modem syncs a helluvalot faster too (currently @ 22down/1mbit up)

i hope iinet continues to ignore them

Scary doesn't even begin to start describing this one. Not sure I want to be around when this can of worms blows open.

So let's see. Napster was, 2000? 8 years and they finally get it right and sue somebody with a decent shot.

I think legally this is a very interesting case. I mean, just to look at the basics:

ISPs derive a significant portion of their demand growth, indirectly, from piracy. It's been this way for years; It's effectively a wink and a nod between the end user and the ISP.

iiNet is probably the vanguard of the 'cheap, fast and fat' ISPs. Pretty much all my friends are on iiNet, myself included (when I'm home).

iiNet don't send on piracy notices to end users. Now apparently this is not a legal obligation, but if you were iiNet, it wouldn't do well to scare your users by threatening them with life without parole (as the MPAA would have it).

On the other hand, ISPs can't and shouldn't be spying on their customers, and are currently (as they would) resisting being the movie police. Technically, it's an expensive kludge _at best_ to snoop at the POP, and you notice they don't risk going after the end users directly? Nasty.

Also pretty nasty how they have singled out iiNet. Why not Bigpond? I mean sure, Bigpond would give us all 1MB yearly quotas if it could, but Bigpond certainly have legal resources, and besides they would probably, strategically wish to align with MPAA for online delivery.

There appear to be alot of nails out being readied !

life on parole? for reals?

The growth and business statement is stupid.

You only have to ask if these people would not have purchased internet connections if they had not been able to download copyrighted material.

Perhaps you could argue that plans with large download quota's are encouraging but that is pretty flimsy.

You only have to ask if these people would not have purchased internet connections if they had not been able to download copyrighted material.

I can say with 100% certainty that I would not have gone with iinet had it not been so appealing for me as a torrent0r (legal or otherwise)

Perhaps you could argue that plans with large download quota's are encouraging but that is pretty flimsy.

I don't think its that flimsy at all, really. Most people that whine about low caps don't do it cuz they want to download hundreds of Linux ISOs (mongie, not I said most, I'm sure some people use it for videoconferencing and all that other s*** you talk about)

f*** if it wasn't for linux ISO's I'd be happy with telstra 3GB cap still.

I didn't say iinet. I was referring to internet connections in general. If every ISP operated under the same legislation.

But most people don't have large caps... Internode quote some statistic about 10% of their users using 90% of the bandwidth... Internode are okay with that though, cause they're paying for the priveledge.

I assume the media companies think they have a shot... I doubt they would go to all this trouble for a case they know they won't win.

The US FTA supposedly has safe harbour provisions that protect the ISP in cases like this, but I'm not sure if thats ever been tested though.

I got iiNet because they had a good value plan at the time and offered Naked ADSL. I get good pings to game servers too.

Torrenting, meh doesn't even enter the equation.


I don't understand why iiNet has been singled out? Why not internode or Optus or any other broadband ISP. Is it because iiNet didn't pass on the notices? I've heard of people on Optus getting notices before, but that's about it.

This is kinda bad timing for the whole censoring the internet jibe. The very few that want it can use this to help their argument and add another broad category to their overpowered secret blacklist, torrents .. of any kind..

Trog, just fyi... My sister & two parents download more than 10GB/month and none of them would have any idea how to pirate stuff...

Add to that the number of legit video download / watching sites that are popping up (eg. I-View). There is plenty of data for people to be downloading 30-50GB/month no worries.

Edit: Toll - I believe the issue is that iiNet think the onus should be on the media company concerned to report it to the correct authorities, whilev the Media companies believe that the ISPs should take action when they are notified without the need for police etc.

last edited by mongie at 17:03:35 20/Nov/08

But the node deliberately don't go after the Linux ISO market segment. They price higher with lower caps and push the service and reliability edge to differentiate over their competitors.

Games are a killer too! I think bf2 used about 18k/sec I read somewhere and that is an old one. For a hardcore player doing 3 hours a day that is 5gig or so a month.

Game patches also, how big was the last WoW patch? Also Game demos, l4d demo clocked in around 2gig.

Also buying games on steam and such, that can easily hit 4gig in a hit.


So do the other ISP's do what the Big Media ask?

I have never really got into linux iso's.. probably why i hardly use up my cap.

But the node deliberately don't go after the Linux ISO market segment. They price higher with lower caps and push the service and reliability edge to differentiate over their competitors.

except for usenet and unmetered uploads, I guess you mean

except for usenet and unmetered uploads, I guess you mean

exactly what I was about to say.

ooh, touché

news is pretty 20th century anyway, I don't have the beard for it ;)

The COD WAW demo was 2 gig, most new game demos seem to be as huge. If you want to try them out, and have a steam accoutn so you have no say in where the content comes from, you want a decent download cap.

Having said that, 25 gig a month is oodles for most.

Good.Luck.

There is a Whirlpool Article that explains the issue very nicely.

The COD WAW demo was 2 gig, most new game demos seem to be as huge. If you want to try them out, and have a steam accoutn so you have no say in where the content comes from, you want a decent download cap.

I'd rather digital content distributors sort their s*** out to make mirroring and redistribution of their content much easier. Having spent most of the last 10 years trying to make sure Australians can get s*** quickly without having to battle international users I am still depressed by how few companies get digital distribution.

It's so f***ing trivial to do effectively even with a half-assed effort. It gives you more exposure. It ensures users can get your content faster and more reliably. It helps on a global scale as contested international links don't get congested with users in Bumf***, Idaho trying to download from a server in Croatia.

Trog - Not every ISP has an unmetered games mirror

There is a Whirlpool Article that explains the issue very nicely.

looks like exactly what I said

I dont think its any Coincidence that this has popped up at the same time a few ISPs have decided to Try out the governments Net Filtering.
Anyone with a minor knowledge of the Internet knows that the governments web filter has nothing to do with Child Pornography.
Its about turning the tap off for illegal downloads or sharing of media (whichever you prefer)

GET YOUR PAWS OFF MY NET YOU DAMN DIRTY APES

Newsgroups are awesome, sort by size and you get all the best porn at the top.

infi is right we need guns ... lets shoot some people for stopping our piracy!

Newsgroups are awesome, sort by size and you get all the best porn at the top.

How the f*** does your news reader work out how tall the women are?

news is pretty 20th century anyway

maybe, but it's the new black for linux isos

How the f*** does your news reader work out how tall the women are?

:facepalm:

I don't think being sued can set legal precedence exactly. Suing is all about compensation isn't it? So they are probably going to claim the cases of piracy as lost income and make iiNet pay for it. I highly doubt they will succeed and are probably just using this as a scare tactic or for publicity.

I think what they are trying to do is cordon off the really high-bitrate stuff. Mass BT for hi-def over our international links isn't going to scale anyway, so if you can make the cost, risk and more importantly time involved in downloading a lossy hi-res copy greater than the $10 blu-ray rental up the road at EzVids or even legitimately over the wire, that might go a long way.

They can't prove loss of profit! Now ain't no big city fancy lawyer *book* *book* But I am pretty sure any court decision ruled in someones favour can be used as precedence in another case.


last edited by Ross at 18:15:10 20/Nov/08

precedent Ross.

I think technically I can use both right? I said i wasn't a big city fancy lawyer

No no I can't. Thank you!

Crap :( I'm with iiNet :(

Didn't someone in the US try to do this and it failed?

If there was a decent cable Hi-def TV option out there, that would stream all the good stuff i want to watch, WHEN i want to watch it, then I wouldn't care, I'd pay my 100 bucks a month in cable TV. Cable on demand, they have it the US!
But having to sit through the unreliable channel 7, 9, 10 crap, sit through crazy amounts of ads etc - it's just not worth it! AND having to WAIT for the shows!? :|

I don't see how it should be the ISP's responsibility for what the user does. Simple.

There are a thousand analogies out there for this - where do we stop the line of prosecution? Do they sue Dell for allowing customers to buy their products in which also enable downloading? Do we sue Telstra/Optus for allowing the physical phone line to exist?

The ISPs provide the service which covers many things, not just illegal downloads. They provide internet in general. If they provide large download limits, that's great because user want that. Everyone has said Steam uses lots, I've downloaded how many gigs of Left4Dead related bits in the last month? More than 6GB, that's for sure!

People very much download Linux ISOs too. Those tech-savvy people who pay for large limits like the freedom of Linux. These same people use many more bandwidth-heavy sites. Normally a copout but it's true, I wouldn't get Linux ISOs if ISPs only offered small download limits.

Don't get angry at the ISP for providing a great service in general. Old laws are being used for a new practice and it makes no sense. f*** me, the simple way to do things for these cowardly companies would be to provide a service like Steam does - cheap, effective online delivery of a loved product. I know Steam encourages legal purchases, now the Movie and Music companies need to follow suit (don't get me started on not allowing us to buy a damn mp3 file and actually f***ing own the thing!).

In the context of TV shows, maybe if they didn't screw over viewers with long delays after US broadcasts, putting stuff like Heroes at 10.30pm, and randomly postponing shows for months .. then maybe people wouldn't have a reason to download anything.

This is bulls***, everyone who says this knows they'd still pirate stuff even if it was screened during prime time and came out on the same day as it did in the US just so you could watch it without adverts. People who use the old "oh but we have to wait so long" story are dumb, who cares if you've got to wait a month before we see the episode that just aired in the US? We're still getting and seeing them in the right order, just later. You're all just a bunch of impatient gits. If you love the US for its television screening times to much then f***ing move there and get out of my country.

edit:

I don't see how it should be the ISP's responsibility for what the user does. Simple.

I don't know about iinet's EULA but telstras says you can't use it for illegal purposes, if you do it gets cut off. If the RIAA or whatever dickcheese it is this time is sending letters telling ISP's their customers are breaking the EULA and the ISP isn't doing anything about it then yeah the ISP needs a good swift kick in the pants.

last edited by whoop at 18:42:38 20/Nov/08

whoop is a hollywood film director, so this issue really gets him fired up.

This is bulls***, everyone who says this knows they'd still pirate stuff

You'll find you're only speaking for yourself.

People who use the old "oh but we have to wait so long" story are dumb, who cares if you've got to wait a month before we see the episode that just aired in the US? We're still getting and seeing them in the right order, just later.

Not really.

Free-to-air is incredibly unreliable. My folks keep bitching about their shows just being pushed around. They show a couple of episodes, then they stop, then even though there are plenty of episodes available they still delay it. They sometimes even do a one-episode-per-day marathon to finish off the series ASAP, similar to what they did with 24.

Or like I said, they then just move the timeslot around until you're not even awake to watch it - making you record it, which is not much different to downloading since you'll be fast-forwarding the ads anyway.

You're all just a bunch of impatient gits. If you love the US for its television screening times to much then f***ing move there and get out of my country.

...

Sounds like you're just pissed off because you're stuck on mum's bigpond cable and can't download anything.

If the RIAA or whatever dickcheese it is this time is sending letters telling ISP's their customers are breaking the EULA and the ISP isn't doing anything about it then yeah the ISP needs a good swift kick in the pants.

Not really. The RIAA/MPAA work on very, very limited evidence that is often completely wrong. Much of their infringement notices are completely automated and based on bot crawling and filename matching.

If they knew the ISP would give in and investigate everything, they'd then expand their operation and investigate even less themselves, hoping that for 100 claims they make, they get a hit or two. Similar to spam hey.

last edited by parabol at 18:56:24 20/Nov/08

I watch the shield via the internet. How long do I have to wait before that gets shown here? Or entourage.

This is bulls***, everyone who says this knows they'd still pirate stuff even if it was screened during prime time and came out on the same day as it did in the US just so you could watch it without adverts.

No, that statement there is bulls***, if a show is aired within a week of the us and doesnt look like its going to have its schedule f***ed around ill watch it on tv.

This is bulls***, everyone who says this knows they'd still pirate stuff

No your full of bulls***. I have a HTPC I fire up the guide every few days look for things I might like... 2 red dots for series 1 for a movie.

If its not out relatively soon after people talk about it online ... then I might be tempted to go looking for it.

I would very much like an easily accessible, speedy download service for TV series. I would be happy to pay a reasonable price for it. I want to watch a lot of shows that are not aired here and are hard to get at the video store (sometimes missing a season and such).

It seems the two biggest arguments, and possibly the only ones with any substance behind it, as to why the Big companies don't provide such a service is because:

1. They are scared about people making copies of it and giving it up on the internets.

2. The profits from Box Sets and advertising from TV are too great to want to provide a better service for consumers.

The first argument is easily countered with the FACT that ALL popular TV series are easily available from illegal sources, so creating a content delivery service with minor DRM (if any) won't change the illegal availability of movies/shows.

The second argument is much harder to counter. People don't want Ad's in the middle of their shows, so any attempt to add ad's will be met with people continuing to get them from torrentz and not converting people to paying for the product.

I'm sure the Big Companies are scared that if they do a good content delivery service without Ad's they will lose profits from TV stations buying their shows.

HOWEVER, if the Big Companies were smart they would use new technologies to counter this.
The technology to embed video and pictures with advertisement (on walls and such) and videos that have previously been created exists, especially when the original videos are designed for it.

A TV show can have a purpose blank billboard in a main scene. Then later, just prior to streaming, the billboard can have a highly localized correctly targeting image digitally embedded into it. All done automagically. This would solve profits lost to lack of advertising.


So Big Media have the technology to stream content directly to users on demand and make profit from it, they are just too damn stubborn.

nice acronym though.

"oh s*** i just got a letter from my isp"
"haha suck it fag, you just got afact"

Would using a proxy + veoh be considered illegal either here or in the US?

(illegal by law and not by company)

iiNet are one of the ISPs that want to test Web Filtering.

Have a read of this article.
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/21799/127/

Michael Malone, managing director of iiNet, told iTWire that it is the company's intention to destroy the impending ISP filtering Pilot and has slammed Senator Conroy for what he believes is a waste of taxpayers' money in conducting the trial.

"Half of the ISP community think he's an idiot while the other half think he's incompetent," said Mr Malone.
"This Minister would have you believe that this is all about filtering kiddie porn but it's not. It's about filtering websites and anyone who knows anything knows that kiddie porn doesn't appear on websites - it's circulated privately between members of closed rings."

And a few days later we get This fiasco...
Its obviously related and the REAL ppl behind Web Filtering are beginning to show their hand.

are you implying that kiddy pornographers are behind this?

Hey it's smashcrab's retarded mate, FaceMan.

haha

The Web Filter will block P2P.
Thats the Real target.

whoop is a hollywood film director, so this issue really gets him fired up.

Hey I've got to make a living somehow :(

facecrab is really making sense to me, i think hes onto something~!

If the web filter is really to block P2P then a lot of money must have been laid down somewhere to invoke the power of the pollies. In which case there is no amount of reasoning that will stop it from going ahead.

iiNet are one of the ISPs that want to test Web Filtering.

Their reasoning is that they want to show why it wont work in a real world setting, rahter than have some small isp with 5 customers going "hey it works great!".
Now whether you agree with that reasoning or not is another matter, but get it right.

iiNet's response, which is actually logical and convincing:

http://www.iinet.net.au/about/media/releases/201108_iinet_to_defend_court_action.pdf

Summary: iiNet pass each complaint onto the police, the anti-piracy guys don't follow it up.

last edited by parabol at 21:52:54 20/Nov/08

Michael Speck, who between 2004 and 2006 ran the music industry's landmark case against KaZaA as the head of MIPI, said he believed legal precedents already established and the emergence of filtering technologies meant iiNet would lose the case.

So if this case wins, ISP's will be forced to use internet filtering of some type? That would certainly help the governments plan.

I wonder if they have considered if they sue and lose that users will just go "oh well now we can download what ever we want cause they will just lose in court".

It appears that iiNet have done the right thing by prior to this law suit informing them to take it up with the police as it is a legal matter, they appear to have taken "reasonable action in response to the threats" which is what it will come down to I would imagine.

The webfilter wont block ALL p2p cause there are a number of legit applications of torrents and the filters from what I have read only work on blacklistings for the first 2 phases -eg- World of Warcraft patches are torrents. I would been keen to see a public listing of sites that are on this blacklist as I am yet to see any accurate description of what will and wont be blocked... not some random "sites that we deam to contain bad material" crap.

last edited by -=CluBCaT=- at 14:01:28 21/Nov/08

haha

The Web Filter will block P2P.
Thats the Real target.

No it isn't. I'd actually prefer it if it was, because at least it'd make some sort of sense.

The first argument is easily countered with the FACT that ALL popular TV series are easily available from illegal sources, so creating a content delivery service with minor DRM (if any) won't change the illegal availability of movies/shows.

The second argument is much harder to counter. People don't want Ad's in the middle of their shows, so any attempt to add ad's will be met with people continuing to get them from torrentz and not converting people to paying for the product.

I dunno, I used to occasionally download The Daily Show and The Colbert Report from usenet because I wanted to watch them. Now they have the full episode online (with ads) within a couple hours after it airs, so I can watch it happily from the comfort of my own browser.

I'd rather be able to download it and put it on my ipod or xbox or whatever, but it's a good start and the episodes are only ~20 mins, so its not inconvenient to watch it in the browser.

Now they make money off me watching it because of advertising and I've stopped downloading it from illegalz sources. Ditto with South Park.

Trog - I completely agree with you.

You can buy a lot of TV shows via i-tunes in America (but not Australia), and I'd probably make use of a legal alternative if it were available.

The simple fact here is that Telstra is the biggest offender of allowing P2P pirating of illegal content in this country. They have 50% or the broadband market and do not pass on any notices to users. If AFACT had a real case they would be going after the 400 pound gorillia not the small fry who has just a 5% market share. I'm guessing Telstra has some pretty scary, expensive lawyers.

The simple fact here is that Telstra is the biggest offender of allowing P2P pirating of illegal content in this country. They have 50% or the broadband market and do not pass on any notices to users. If AFACT had a real case they would be going after the 400 pound gorillia not the small fry who has just a 5% market share. I'm guessing Telstra has some pretty scary, expensive lawyers.

Possibly - maybe they're thinking iiNet will fold like pussies, but from what I can tell from a few of the posts from Malone, that dude has some cojones and will tell these a******s to go f*** themselves sideways with a chainsaw, which is what they deserve.

The iiNet press release I think is pretty good and I'm sure they're acting in accordance with the law. It'll be interesting to see how much pressure Big Media can put on our legal system over here ; hopefully it's not as much as it manages in the US.

It's interesting to see the stuff in the press release like this:

“In reality, iiNet has been leading the industry in making content available legally through our Media Lounge, including agreements with iTunes, ABC iView, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, Cruizin', Macquarie Digital TV, NASA Television, Barclays Premier League football, Drift Racing 2007 and classic highlights of golf's four Majors,” Mr Malone said.

So they've actually gone way out of their way to help provide legitimate, properly licensed content to their customers, and instead of being appreciative of their efforts to make this available, they're getting sued.

No wonder noone has moral qualms when infringing the copyrights of these people. They're going to treat you like a criminal no matter what (see: copyright warnings on your legitimately purchased media), so f***, why not act like one.

Mass, more like they get teh precident then go after the Gorilla

“In reality, iiNet has been leading the industry in making content available legally through our Media Lounge, including agreements with iTunes, ABC iView, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, Cruizin', Macquarie Digital TV, NASA Television, Barclays Premier League football, Drift Racing 2007 and classic highlights of golf's four Majors,” Mr Malone said.

Do any of those use P2P ?

I tell you now
Its all building up to something
something than can only be consumed by a BAN ON P2P.

double post timed out

I watch the Colbert Report and Daily Show off of the comedy channel and the thing is the other shows I watch that I download are also available to watch via streaming but are blocked to non-US users.

I don't think Australian broadband is at a stage yet where streaming is practical and with download caps, having to essentially pay to download ads would be an issue for me. It's not a big deal with the Daily Show because the stream doesn't need to be good quality and the ads are short and repetitive but with a higher quality stream and a show that has more then one company sponsoring it the ad download alone could be significant.

I dunno, I used to occasionally download The Daily Show and The Colbert Report from usenet because I wanted to watch them. Now they have the full episode online (with ads) within a couple hours after it airs, so I can watch it happily from the comfort of my own browser.

see, the problem with this is, some of us like our media views in decent quality, like 720p

that aint gonna streaming through no browser any time soon

something than can only be consumed by a BAN ON P2P.

Blocking p2p is as technically infeasible and roughly as useful as filtering the web

from those 2 articles, it would seem they are more worried about movies than tv shows...which apart from a few movies that are released later over here, we get mostly ontime over here and people should just go watch it instead

i would however prefer to buy just movies online rather than forking out the sometimes stupid amount of $ for dvds over here

So they've actually gone way out of their way to help provide legitimate, properly licensed content to their customers, and instead of being appreciative of their efforts to make this available, they're getting sued.

none of those things listed is bigmedia though, unlike telstra have that whole music downloads nonsense. i thought they had an online movie thing too?

To which iiNiet promptly replied, "ahahahahahahahahahahahahah"

Movies are crap downloaded anyway, it's often easier and better quality just to hire them out. I know i'll be hiring a lot of blu-ray content once i get it up and running, and the blank BRD prices are expensive enough to warrant even purchasing Blu-Rays

you're doing it wrong ^

haha, he sure is:

Telesyncs etc are crap....I don't care how good they are - they are still not as good as a DVD or BRD rip. And Blu-Ray rips are like 4gig+

99% of moofies made these days arent worth owning anyway

^ Exactly!

why is iinet singled out here??

because they're big enough to cause a stir but small enough to sue
I couldn't really see the Australian record industry going up against Telstra

You can buy a lot of TV shows via i-tunes in America (but not Australia), and I'd probably make use of a legal alternative if it were available.

How much are they?

my girlfriend has a US itunes account which she signed up for using an Australian Visa (debit) and a fake US address
it works as normal, you login as you normally would and it just uses USD$ & gives you US shows

its just a shame that this day in age we're separated by invisible boundaries such as this, even if they are trivial to overcome

There's an interesting opinion piece on why iiNet will probably lose the case:

http://apcmag.com/why_iinet_will_probably_lose_the_piracy_lawsuit.htm


I debunked some of the major defence iiNet used. Naturally the only outcome that will matter is the one from the case...

I was at the post office yesterday and the thought occured to me - Australia Post would handle s***loads of packages which contain illegal goods but they don't get sued.

Yeah slightly different Le Cock. The article sort of explain that a little bit.

Ah i see. So is this case only for movies/tv shows and not music? And will any customers get in the s*** if iinet win/lose this case?

And will any customers get in the s*** if iinet win/lose this case?

This particular case doesn't involved customers directly but, the implication of iiNet losing the case is troubling for customers and ISP alike.

There's an interesting opinion piece on why iiNet will probably lose the case:

http://apcmag.com/why_iinet_will_probably_lose_the_piracy_lawsuit.htm


I debunked some of the major defence iiNet used. Naturally the only outcome that will matter is the one from the case...

Here's a better read

This particular case doesn't involved customers directly but, the implication of iiNet losing the case is troubling for customers and ISP alike.

I would immediately cut my plan down from $150/mo (about 100GB of data) to something like $50/month or less
So I guess what I'm saying is that while I disagree with the idea that iinet are to blame, it would have the desired effect if they were to lose this case
Ie. I would stop downloading movies and what not

Actually tequila makes an interesting point. ISPs are probably the only party that could be seen to be making a profit from pirating.

hey don't sound so surprised, I have my moments

Actually tequila makes an interesting point. ISPs are probably the only party that could be seen to be making a profit from pirating.

Big Media have been whining about this exact point for years, even in Australia. I posted a thread or something a while back about the SBS show Insight they have when it was ISPs vs Big Media discussing pretty much this very issue.

You can watch it online, it's worth a gander:

http://news.sbs.com.au/insight/episode/index/id/19#watchonline

The thing is, the film industry whine and whine and whine, but they don't offer solutions.

There's two types of pirates if you ask me:

- Type 1: if you made it impossible to download content without paying, then they wouldn't watch the content anyway (i.e., they wouldn't pay for),
- Type 2: if you made it impossible to download the content without paying then they would just cough up and purchase.

Actually tequila makes an interesting point. ISPs are probably the only party that could be seen to be making a profit from pirating.

The other key player that makes money is the hardware manufacturer. Last time I checked you can't pirate a SLI GeFORCE 9800GTX setup (watch how quickly this sentence outdates....)

what has hardware manufacturers got to do with piracy?

Bigger hard drives man to store the warez, yo.

I think there is a 3rd type Pinky.

- Type 3: If you left piracy alone; But made good quality, readily available downloads for a resonable fee. People would pay rather then pirate.

I wonder how much a TV company pays for a show and how much they make off it.
These people making the TV shows/Movies could cut out the middle man (TV Stations/Cinemas) and still make a decent profit (maybe?)

Just like Music. I know loads of people that use to pirate music but some now buy online (Others want better quality before they buy). The same could be done for TV/Movies.

thats not a type of pirate you're talkin about scooter

and as wonderful as that sounds, people are always going to go for what is available for free

If you make a good quality game/series/movie I will buy it. If not, I'll borrow it from a mate (perfectly legal).

Otherwise shove it up ya bum, I'd rather spend my money on getting drunk.

Make it easy for me to buy the media and receive it (i.e. I want to download it now and have your permission to back it up too!) and I'll give you my money no problems.

Make it a hassle (i.e. DRM, must have CD in to play, must register if you change hardware, etc etc) then you can also shove it up ya bum.

indeed, if they had of jumped on the bandwagon years ago and just made the media easily accessible for a small fee, piracy would be nothing like it is today imo

i would so much prefer an easily accessible minimal-clicking involved fast download that just debits my pre-paid account automagically

Agreed Teq

that teq is so hot right now

Aye, but you need a computer to download stuff, am I right? You can't pirate a computer. That's what I mean by hardware, the whole lot - that's what I mean by hardware manufacturers are benefiting from piracy. It's a common argument, and there is a serious design flaw - hardware manufacturers could easily implement a hardware ID (like a MAC address, but one that cannot be easily changed or faked), but they refuse to because they know ultimately it would affect their own sales.