On February 4th, Australian Internet service provider iiNet won its court battle against several Hollywood studios.

Justice Dennis Cowdroy announced that iiNet was not responsible for the infringements of its subscribers when they shared copyright material using BitTorrent.

In the wake of this decision, ISP Exetel says it will modify long-standing procedures it has in place to forward infringement notices to its customers on behalf of copyright holders.

Previously customer access to the Internet was temporarily blocked while they either denied the infringement allegations or apologized to rights holders. Shortly this will change. In an email to customers the company said;

“We will continue to send any infringement notices we receive in the future, but before the end of February we will not require the user to acknowledge receipt of it nor will we temporarily block the customer’s internet access.”

“Subject to final legal advice, and re-coding time and testing, we will in future simply send the infringement notice to the registered ‘owner’ of the service,” the company added.

It seems the iiNet decision has clarified the position and responsibilities of ISPs, but not necessarily in the direction that copyright holders would’ve liked.

Article from: FreakBits

Last year several movie studios including Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Disney Enterprises, Inc. and the Seven Network (all under the umbrella of AFACT) took legal action against Aussie ISP, iiNet.

They claimed that iiNet did nothing to stop its customers from sharing their copyright media via BitTorrent. The ISP refuted the claim with a multi-layered defense, and the case was adjourned in November 2009.

It’s believed that Justice Dennis Cowdroy will deliver his judgment next week. Check out TorrentFreak for a full report.

In the meantime, those wishing to brush up on the history of the case can find our detailed coverage here, here, here, here and here.

Article from: FreakBits