WAIA | Western Australian Internet Association – Western Australian Internet Association

Why is it that when Pink releases her new album we can buy it on iTunes or Bigpond the same day but when the latest James Bond movie is released the only place we can see it is at the cinema? The simple answer is that the movie industry refuses to embrace the Internet. Even when movie titles go to rental they are still not readily available for download. Then there’s TV. Why can US residents buy the latest TV shows online (for US$1.99 per episode) but the same opportunity on the same TV shows is not available in Australia? Because the movie industry refuses to allow it.

Consumers then resort to unauthorised downloads. Should they?
Certainly not, unauthorised downloads are a violation of the movie owners rights, they take away income from the movie producers and everyone involved in the movie industry.

What is the movie industry doing about it?
They are taking an Internet Service Provider to court claiming that the ISP should have stopped the unauthorised copying.

There are two things that just don’t make sense about this:

1. The movie industry significantly contributes to the cause of unauthorised downloads.
Their refusal to embrace the Internet as a medium for distribution and monetisation of their content drives consumers to distribute the content themselves.
2. Why blame the ISP?
The problem is that consumers are copying movies between themselves. The movie industry has substantial rights under law to prosecute consumers that do unauthorised copying they just refuse to take advantage of the laws that are already present.

WA Internet industry is concerned
The WA Internet industry is very concerned about this latest legal action against iiNet. The essence of what the movie industry argues is that the ISP should be judge, jury and executioner. Given just an unproven allegation of unauthorised copying the ISP should disconnect a consumers Internet and phone. What if the allegation is incorrect, the ISP disconnects a customer in “error”. What if the connection is shared, one user infringes and all users get disconnected. And, because there is no judicial step, a disconnected user can just reconnect with a different ISP the next day so we’re really punishing the ISP by taking away one of their customers rather than punishing the consumer.

The current legal action by the movie industry against iiNet does not make sense. Even if they win they won’t stop unauthorised copying. And the real issue is that no matter what the outcome of this case you still won’t be able to purchase the latest James Bond movie online for viewing at home.

Media Enquiries: Please contact Andree McIntyre on 9386 9155 or 0417 187 025 or andree@waia.asn.au or WAIA President, Richard Bone on 1300 857 266 or 0418 910 285.