Pirate Party Australia applauds today’s High Court ruling to uphold the verdict that was handed down in favour of ISP iiNet early last year.
The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) initially sued the ISP over claims that the company had authorised copyright infringement by its subscribers. After losing their appeal to the Australia Federal Court, AFACT, who lead a party of 34 film studios against iiNet, appealed again to the High Court. Today the announcement was made that the second appeal was unsuccessful.
“I am sure it comes as no suprise to anyone that we welcome this ruling,” said Brendan Molloy, Secretary of Pirate Party Australia. “We reiterate that ISPs behave similarly to the postal service – they are the carriers of the message, and that message should remain private. It is not their business to police users, but merely to comply where necessary with authorities. ISPs are not, and should never be, responsible to anyone other than their subscribers and local law enforcement agencies.”
“However, this is not the end of the issue. We have continually protested against the closed-door meetings conducted by the Attorney-General’s department, in which industry representatives are given priority, and the public are ignored. The citizens of Australia are being refused participation in the ‘piracy debate,’ when they should be the most vocal of concerned parties,” they continued. “Copyright is not just an issue for rights holders and service providers – the voice of the public must be given priority above all else.”
Pirate Party Australia continues to campaign heavily for the relaxation of copyright restrictions that prohibit non-commercial sharing and remixing of copyrighted works, and the closely related areas of privacy, patent reform and governmental transparency.
I think this is positive but we still have a long way to go. The best way to help protect our core tenets is to solve the piracy debate with Hollywood, however, this is going to take time. For one industry has it in its power to interfere with the freedom of the internet. In order to protect its profits it is willing to stifle freedom. Sometimes I think they dont even realise what is at stake in the bigger picture here. Perhaps the rise of the world’s Pirate Parties may give them a clue.