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ZDNet / iiNet / Story
Malone to AFACT: You lose, you pay
iiNet managing director Michael Malone said today that the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) shouldn't be able to get out of paying for its failed attempt to sue the provider over copyright breach.
iiNet chief Michael Malone (Credit: iiNet)
"We didn't ask to be sued. They came to us and sued us and they lost, so I don't see why we should be paying any of their legal expenses," Malone told ZDNet.com.au today.
The company reported in its half-year earnings that it had forked out $5.7 million in legal costs defending the case. While iiNet's insurance reduced its exposure to $3.7 million, AFACT and the 34 applicants that took part in the litigation may be left with the full bill, including its own costs to date.
AFACT intends this Thursday to try and trim its legal bills, arguing to the Federal Court that it should not face costs incurred for portions of the hearing that were not decided in iiNet's favour — for example, the legal costs incurred while iiNet was still denying that its customers had breached copyright while using its service.
Malone is also waiting for AFACT's decision on whether it will appeal Justice Cowdroy's decision, due this Thursday. He believed the costs for an appeal were unlikely to be as high as the initial proceeding.
"You might assume costs go up with each new level of court, but there are no new witnesses and no new evidence can be presented in an appeal. So really you're down to the lawyers arguing matters of law. [AFACT] can't go back and reintroduce new stuff," said Malone.
Malone said he had "speculated" on what grounds AFACT may appeal that Cowdroy was "equivocal in his conclusions".
"There wasn't a lot of grey in there," he said. "If there were grey areas where you could say [Justice Cowdroy] had a bet each way, and honed in on this one issue, you'd immediately hone in on that and say that was where they would focus their appeal. Right now we've no idea where an appeal would be focused."
Malone labelled AFACT's legal action against it as a "pointless exercise". "The legal action over the past one-and-a-half years has not done anything to curb piracy in Australia, whereas things like Hulu [a US-only online service owned by the NBC TV network] and iTunes have done considerable amounts," he said.
"I look at the amount of money we have spent on litigation, and no doubt there would have been a lot more [spent] by the studios. Think of what that could have been spent on if it was applied to online content instead."
iiNet is gearing up for the launch of its own IPTV service expected by the end of March this year, according to Malone. The set-top box product will enable customers to receive free-to-air TV channels and other content that it has yet to lock in deals for.
Malone said the product would be comparable to Foxtel rather than Apple iTunes movie download service, and iiNet was in negotiations with movie studios to distribute content via the product. "There's certainly an intent to get video deals on there," he said.
Talkback
Go Mike
AMYTH (AFACT) should have to pay all costs and be disbanded. Somebody needs to reign these thieves in.
Anonymous February 22nd, 2010Live By The Sword
PAY UP you mewling bitches !!!
Anonymous February 22nd, 2010AFACT = A Sleaze
Yeah lie, cheat and scheme to force your market monopoly upon everyone - and when it blows up in your face - run away crying, "Oh it's not fair - we shouldn't have to pay".
Weasels..... kick them out the front door - all the way to the gutter where they belong.
Anonymous February 22nd, 2010So
Does that mean the rest of us can refuse to pay if we sue someone and lose?
Anonymous February 22nd, 2010Re: So
Only the parts that make us look bad.
Anonymous February 23rd, 2010Michael Malone is a Communist
When will people realise that the reason we have a judiciary is to protect the profits of foreign entertainment companies?
John Pasquale February 23rd, 2010How so?
Please explain how defending oneself makes one a communist?
Copyright was NEVER about protecting the creator of the work: its purpose has always been protecting the profit of the "publisher/ distributor".
AMYTH (nice one!) has to come to grips with the FACT that their business model is failing under the onslaught of "Generation mY". The "hole" they seek to plug with legislation will have grown to "black" proportions before there's any workable legislation in place.
Mic February 23rd, 2010Making everyone pay for a small group of people... THAT's communist.
Enough said. Those who disagree can go forth and mutliply.
Darren February 24th, 2010Image goes from bad to worse
Many people see the film and TV industry as being run by greedy people with limited vision... This action is strongly reinforcing that idea.
Could they think of any better way to take their image from bad to worse? Maybe they could try just suing every person over 18 in Australia.
Tim B February 23rd, 2010Well...
In the USA, they don't even limit themselves to over 18 - they've sued some (legal) kids.
mike smith February 24th, 2010AFACT lose
I'm waiting for AFACT's next argument that if they pay iiNet's legal bills, the terrorists win.
Piracy funds terrorists. It's on all their DVDs' non skippable pre-menu so it must be true.
Anonymous February 23rd, 2010This is where we need to separate "intent"
A download cannot possibly be contributing to "terrorism"--in most cases it's a sale the distributor would never have made in the first place, so it cannot be called "lost" revenue because it never existed in the first place.
The REAL criminals are selling a fake product that looks like the original to unsuspecting public by the truckload. These are the people they should be targetting.
Mic February 23rd, 2010Greedy bastards
The studio execs and law firms don't care about image, only profit, so calling them the greedy bastards they are will have no effect.
Their insurance companies will now raise their premiums, as the studios have just cost them millions for a futile action.
As film-making technology filters down to smaller film makers, the big studios are becoming increasingly marginalised, apart from the odd Avatar or two. They have a one-off opportunity to develop a fair revenue model for delivering their product, and Video Ezy's boss has just exposed their draconian treatment of potential partners.
Hulu and CASPA will be a couple of the names to watch Down Under in the next year, and the studios must decide whether they want any of this goldmine to come their way, as early adopting Aussies' broadband limits get bigger and cheaper.
Francis February 23rd, 2010wankers
pay up seriously! you came you saw you played the game and you lost now deal with it like a big boy.
http://www.dustinmcmurray.com
Anonymous February 23rd, 2010Of course Conroy will support AFACT
No doubt Conroy will speak out in favour of AFACT.
He's got an agenda to push through and if he doesn't, both he and Labor stand to loose all the donations from the Lobby groups. No doubt, the Liberals will welcome the money as well
Anonymous February 23rd, 2010Donations
You have to be careful with loose donations or you might lose them.
Anonymous February 23rd, 2010Same old story
These corruption groups do the same in the US. Sue but lose and then ask to not need to pay any legal costs or at least have it heavily reduced. Sometimes the defendant is lucky to have some of their defence costs paid for.
Us ordinary citizens can't defend our selves against corruption because of high legal costs to do so and yet these thieves think they shouldn't need to pay for frivolous law suits. What kind of world will that lead to? Oh wait, it's already here, unjust.
Anonymous February 23rd, 2010AFACT (A "fat" cats) choice of lawyer ...
Obviously AFACT mistakenly picked the wrong lawyer when they picked at random in the Yellow Pages.
They must have thought they picked one of those "only pay if you win" types.
Obvioulsy they were sooo sure that they were going to win, and only when they LOST (suffer) did they even start to think of where the money would come from.
Anonymous February 23rd, 2010aaarrrghhh..Pirate ISP's
ahooy ther me harties...we ISP's MUST stick together!!
Conjob are you there? Oh he must be downloading!
Anonymous February 23rd, 2010Sorry but....
Sorry but it really does sound to me that AFACT isnt at all interested in the whole judicial process. Where citizens are innocent until proven guilty by a court.
Anonymous February 23rd, 2010iiNet will win this
Michael Malone has valid points on distributing films and TV through the internet. If it is offered for a reasonable price similar to the US, i'm sure many people will jump aboard.
Going after individual users for copyright violation will cost the film industry even more. The use of resources for iiNet and AFACT would be inefficient too. It makes economic sense to cooperate with ISP's.
Darrell Dinkum February 23rd, 2010Kick AFACT to the kurb Malone
Kick AFACT to the kurb Malone. Those dirty punks deserve hell. If only we all could pull some bogus alligations out of our backsides and force others to run up huge legal bills defending such bogus claims and then when finaly losing in court walk away saying "well, fine, i'm not paying tho"
Anonymous February 23rd, 2010AMYTH, time to go.
God, Afact sued an ISP because they wanted the ISP to bend to their will (Yeah, right a PRIVATE company tells an ISP to disconnect people, they are really going to do that) They are a bunch of children now, its like mum and dad have said "No allowance for 1 month" and they went "No" and started throwing a Hissy on the ground "Iinet started it, Waaaaaahh waaaaaahh!"
Time to kick em out. Time for the pollies to stop listening to these wankers. I've had enough of big business suing everyone because they've all moved on. Hrm, a DVD cover or a 2TB HDD (Roughly same physical size, and hey the HDD staysINSIDE your computer) and 1 movie, or SHITLOADS of movies. Add to that, the fact that no one likes them forcing you to watch their stupid Anti-piracy adds, as they compare us all to terrorists that steal ships/cars and hand bags (when was the last time you saw someone download a car?)
Downloaded versions, are usually better quality, dont need to connect to the net for that DRM rubbish, or dont need you to waste 10 minutes of your time while they bang on.
Enough is enough, every other industry has to go witrh the flow or die out, its time these wankers did too, althoguh the way they are, i would prefer they die out.
Anonymous February 24th, 2010Legal responsibilities
Kick 'em inna fork I say.
Anonymous February 25th, 2010Ummmm So are you saying
That you don't like to movies they produce/ distribute?
Not that I care too much about them as entities, but they still provide the upfront dollars and processes to get movies made in the first place.
I don't think you'd want to live without them completely.....
Anonymous February 25th, 2010Evolve
A big meteor hits (called the internet).
Your a dinosaur. You have two choices.
DIE!, or evolve into smaller, lighter, less dominating creatures that eat less (birds). If your lucky you get to fly, unlucky you end up on my dinner plate.
Those are the choices available.
The old world is dead or dying.
Tough if that does not suit you.
Anonymous March 2nd, 2010Resource Centre Useful content from our premier sponsors
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And rightfully so
Agree 110% with Malone.
AFACT shoudl have to pay full legal bills, as they were unsuccessful. Enough said.