Day 14: Film industry continues to hold up Exetel as model ISP

By Ry Crozier on Nov 5, 2009 3:05 PM
Filed under Telco/ISP

iiNet staff dismisses Exetel's legal advice.

ISP iiNet's chief regulatory officer claims he did not read an Exetel blog post referred to him by a staffer because he did not think it would help iiNet respond to a letter from AFACT, the Federal Court heard today.

Cross-examination of iiNet's second witness - chief regulatory officer Steve Dalby - commenced approximately 90 minutes before the lunch break, in a civil case brought about by representatives of the film industry.

The film industry's lead barrister Tony Bannon alleged that Dalby's attention had been drawn to Exetel chief John Linton's blog post in an email from fellow iiNet compliance staffer Leroy Parkinson.

Parkinson was alleged to have been helping Dalby formulate a response to a letter received from the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft alleging copyright infringements occurring on the iiNet network.

Bannon questioned whether Dalby thought the content of the blog post was "pertinent" to iiNet's own response to the AFACT letter.

Dalby agreed that Parkinson was suggesting to him that "what Exetel had to say about the matter was pertinent" in an email obtained by the film industry in discovery.

"[But] I didn't agree it was pertinent," Dalby said.

"I did not read it."

Pressed on why he did not read the blog, Dalby indicated he held "John Linton and his business in very low esteem.

"It's unlikely then and now I would read his blog."

"Not withstanding the man charged with assisting you with your response to the AFACT letter had identified the blog as being pertinent?" Bannon asked.

"Not withstanding," Dalby replied.

Dalby repeatedly denied to the court that he had read the blog.

"You see, if you'd read that blog you couldn't honestly say to the court that you'd never heard of the concept of peers in relation to BitTorrent could you?" Bannon alleged, referring to a line in the blog post where Exetel's lawyer appeared to make an assumption about how the film industry investigators gathered their evidence.

"It's a hypothetical," Dalby responded. "I didn't read the blog.

Questioned further on the matter, he said: "I don't get my education on these matters from Exetel. I wouldn't ever seek to do so."

A different Exetel blog post was introduced into the case by the film industry on Tuesday as it quizzed the ISP's chief on the alleged difficulty of dealing with "emailed copyright infringement notices".

Dalby's cross-examination continues. You can follow the case in-full here. For a background on the case, click here.

Day 14: Film industry continues to hold up Exetel as model ISP

16 comments in this discussion

"He can't answer questions because he doesn't understand what he's fighting for."

By TruthSphere

Tags

iinet, afact, exetel, john linton, steve dalby, bannon, cross, examination

Google's win reflects internet-friendly High Court

Bottled water case study for content makers: iiNet

NBN Co buys TransACT fibre network

iiNet brings 4G, fleet calls to business SIM plans

Breaking Stories

The illusion of cognitive computing

TransGrid makes the leap to Windows 7

QLD energy provider to outsource IT services

Dotcom threatens to sue web giants over patent 'infringement'

Police tap social media in wake of London attack

Comments: 16

TruthSphere Nov 5, 2009 8:58 PM	Exetel with it's massive download quota per $, probably the cheapest in Australia? Obviously had to suck some major **** to stop AFACT from suing them. Good on ya iinet for saying no to the American corporation felatio.
peterh_oz Nov 5, 2009 9:22 PM	Or maybe Exetel was SMART in that it implemented a policy whereby the accusation was passed to the customer, who either confirmed or denied but either way the onus was on the customer. "It has been alleged that you, or someone using your internet service, has breached copyright by downloading (name of film/song/show). If you deny this, please click here. If you did do this, please click here to confirm that you have deleted the offending item." Pretty simple really. No sucking required, just some common sense which Malone seems to lack (he has lots of arrogance filling the space available from the lack of sense).
durakill Nov 5, 2009 10:54 PM	The copyright holder is perfectly at liberty to sue anybody breaching copyright. Not the seller of the photocopier, not the retailer who sells blank tapes, CDs or DVDs and so on. I probably breach someone's copyright every day. I walk around singing copyrighted songs, I play copyrighted music on my keyboard without paying a cent to the copyright holder. I record TV shows all the time for later watching. Sometimes I record a movie for my grandchildren to watch when they visit. So sue me. There is no such thing as copyright theft. You can't be arrested for "copyright theft". You can't go to jail for "copyright theft". Accusations are one thing. Proof is another. That is why we have laws, and a presumption of innocence. You will notice that AFACT is taking civil action for a very good reason. The ISP has committed no criminal offense in the view of the police and the rest of the system. Otherwise, the matter would be dealt with in a criminal rather than civil court.
Real Bytes Nov 6, 2009 9:14 AM	PeterH_Oz I think you ought to check out the "esteem" with which Mr Linton is held in by those he might consider his peers. [PART COMMENT REMOVED]. Mr Malone however is professional, articulate and might I add a heck of lot more successful than Mr Linton in their chosen profession. Didn't you get flamed enough last time you shot your mouth off about this case? Edited by BrettWinterford: 6/11/2009 01:27:11 PM
Digger11 Nov 6, 2009 10:37 AM	@peterh_oz You appear to be the only other poster that does not work for iiNet and understands the true reason this mob is in court. Just be careful, as you will be called a Troll, lier etc. Just read the above support for Malone - eveyone in the industry knows that Linton is a far superior operator to Malone - but iiNet staffers will keep on posting their rubbish about how great Malone is. I can read the biased rubbish on Whirlpool posted by iiNet staffers pretending to be "satisfied customers" if I want to read about the fantastic iiNet !!! Looks like iiNet is losing the case - which is great. Good riddance to them.
Mitch Nov 6, 2009 11:19 AM	The more you prattle Digger11 the more you look like an absolute moron.
vaxa Nov 6, 2009 11:55 AM	we can argue as much as we can because we always will have different opinions. But imagine if AFACT wins the case? Who will be the next one and what type of case that will be: Telstra/AAPT/Optus because they also have users? AusPost because they handle mass correspondense? I can understand the AFACT concerns since the piracy has grown to such a magnitude around the world and they are loosing their battle against it (and loosing money of course). But on my opinion there are much better ways to stop it - start selling DVDs for 5$ instead of 30$, sell software for 30$ instead of 400$ and the Apple was the good case with their SnowLeopard that went on sale for 40$ per computer or 70$ for 5 conputers. On my opinion once matter is in the court then there is no more human logic applies to it - these are the court rules where you can write the letter and be no responsible for it - the smarter wins (the movie 'Civil Action' with Travolta is a good case)
marklara Nov 6, 2009 11:56 AM	All: Note that Digger11 is John Linton - and has personal issues and hangups with senior staff at iiNet. Do not pay attention to his biased opinions.
Mitch Nov 6, 2009 12:15 PM	If Digger11 is John Linton thats a nice way to make his company look like dead soap.
firey1 Nov 6, 2009 1:02 PM	[PART COMMENT EDITED] Exetel a model ISP? What a load of rubbish. Digger11 is JL? I would never have guessed. :D Edited by BrettWinterford: 6/11/2009 01:28:28 PM
Sams Nov 6, 2009 3:15 PM	"Note that Digger11 is John Linton" I seriously doubt it. Have a look at JL's writing - far more articulate, and he actually understands copyright law, even if we disagree with his interpretation. Digger11 on the other hand was saying last week that it is illegal to download "copyrighted material". He went all quiet when I mentioned that includes the web pages he was currently looking at ("see the copyright notice at the bottom?").
vaxa Nov 6, 2009 4:20 PM	... continue the Sams line: And are we breaching the copyright when these pages are savedn in the cache of the browsers? ... and if we move the offline pages from one computer to another - is that a crime?
Digger11 Nov 6, 2009 5:04 PM	@Sams, I didn't go all quiet on anything - looking at a web page is o.k., I had no idea what your irrelevant point was about, so I didn't respond. You iiNet fanboi's need to get a bit of a life and iiNet employees get back to work. It might be interesting to read about your incompetent management team but you really should be working on stopping the flood of churning customers that will come once iiNet are forced back into line with the rest of the industry. Now, If Dalby has to defend iiNet against any Class Action against iiNet that may arise from their cavalier attitude - I think they are in real real trouble.
Sams Nov 7, 2009 12:41 PM	Digger11: "I had no idea what your irrelevant point was about, so I didn't respond." Its pretty simple really. Looking at your comment at that time: Digger11 (Oct 16): "would any reasonable man in the ISP industry ever honestly not think that many,many iiNet users are downloading copyright material???" Sams (Oct 16): "You are downloading "copyright material" right now - see the copyright notice at the bottom of this page. You don't know what you are talking about."
Sams Nov 10, 2009 12:56 AM	He went all quiet again :-)
TruthSphere Nov 10, 2009 10:41 AM	He can't answer questions because he doesn't understand what he's fighting for.