Warner Music Australia and other record labels are suing the ISP for alleged copyright infringement by hosting and maintaining two servers (referred to as "Torrent Webpages") and a Web site called "Archie's Hub" -- claimed to deploy the BitTorrent application.
The music industry alleged yesterday Swiftel senior system administrators Melissa Ong and Ryan Briggs had received requests from member companies to take down sites which were infringing copyright.
The applicants told the magistrates' court the Swiftel employees didn't do enough to address the copyright infringing behaviour and "treated the infringement notices like spam."
According to music industry lawyer Tony Bannon, both names are prominent in a CD stored by Swiftel that contains details of infringement notices sent by different organisations.
"They are benefiting from the infringing behaviour...and they just turn a blind eye," Bannon said.
However, magistrate Rolf Driver said it was "premature and unnecessary to join the two individuals as respondents".
"At this stage there is no evidence that any individual acted beyond the scope of their employment," he said.
Bannon told the court the applicants would raise the application again once further evidence is presented in the case.
Driver also inquired on whether the music industry would substitute Archie's Hub as respondents with the two Swiftel employees. The applicants' lawyers clarified that a fifth respondent was a "John Doe" and that it was never specifically the operator of Archie's Hub.
Music industry lawyer John Hennessy also expressed concern over the status of Swiftel log files which were not surrendered to the applicants under last month's raid.
"They simply haven't been provided. There is a danger of the materials slipping through the system if it is not accessed," Hennessy said.
Driver gave the respondents within seven days to hand over an affidavit detailing their compliance with the orders.
He also ordered to limit the access of the seized materials to the applicants' authorised representatives, legal advisers and technical experts.
This is a whole lot of crap.... Why does ISP have to police on sites that they host? Afterall there are police that do that, and they should not be ISPs. This is totally unfair.