Optus won't reprimand pirating users

Optus director of government and corporate affairs Maha Krishnapillai said today that although it planned to work with other internet service providers and the government on preventing internet piracy, it did not believe in sending alleged infringement notices to users.

Maha Krishnapillai
(Credit: Slattery IT)

Speaking on a conference call discussing Optus' third quarter financial results, Krishnapillai said the company would not "go telling our customers directly what they can and can't run across our network".

Meanwhile, competing internet service provider Exetel has said it will inform its users when it has received alleged infringement notices pertaining to their accounts.

Krishnapillai did, however, say that Optus was "quite happy" to work with the government on preventing piracy.

"We'd also like to work with other content providers, because ultimately getting that content availability to all customers easily and in the right format is probably the ultimate goal of ourselves as well as the content providers," he said. "So we're keen to work with the government but we're very much of the view that there is quite a long way to go and we want to make that as cooperative as possible."

Krishnapillai's comments follow Federal Court Judge Justice Dennis Cowdroy's decision that internet service providers are not responsible for piracy that occurs over their network. The day after the case, the minister for Communications said he wanted the film and internet industries to develop a code of conduct.