Australian court rules on landmark piracy case

The Federal Court of Australia has set a new legal precedent regarding how much internet service providers (ISPs) are required to do to prevent customers from downloading movies and other content illegally. In a suit brought by Hollywood film studios, Justice Dennis Cowdroy found that iiNet, an ISP, was not liable for the downloading habits of its customers as it only served to provide a legitimate communication facility, which was neither intended nor designed to infringe copyright. He said that applications like the BitTorrent system enabled copyright infringement but iiNet had no control over this system. The iiNet case was the first Australian trial to be covered
on Twitter and the first trial of its kind in the world to proceed to hearing and judgment.