WAIA blames movie industry for illegal downloads

“The movie industry significantly contributes to the cause of unauthorised downloads,” said the WAIA. “Their refusal to embrace the Internet as a medium for distribution and monetisation of their content drives consumers to distribute the content themselves.

“Why is it that when Pink releases her new album we can buy it on iTunes or Bigpond the same day but when the latest James Bond movie is released the only place we can see it is at the cinema?

“The simple answer is that the movie industry refuses to embrace the Internet. Even when movie titles go to rental they are still not readily available for download.

“Then there’s TV. Why can US residents buy the latest TV shows online (for US$1.99 per episode) but the same opportunity on the same TV shows is not available in Australia? Because the movie industry refuses to allow it.”

The movie industry is arguing that ISPs should take a bigger role in stopping piracy. It says that when movie studios provide ISPs with the IP addresses of people pirating movies, the ISPs should immediately shut them down.

“The essence of what the movie industry argues is that the ISP should be judge, jury and executioner. Given just an unproven allegation of unauthorised copying the ISP should disconnect a consumers Internet and phone. What if the allegation is incorrect, the ISP disconnects a customer in “error”. What if the connection is shared, one user infringes and all users get disconnected.

“And, because there is no judicial step, a disconnected user can just reconnect with a different ISP the next day so we’re really punishing the ISP by taking away one of their customers rather than punishing the consumer."

Taking the ISPs to court with a claim that they should have stopped the unauthorised copying was faulty logic, they said.

“The movie industry has substantial rights under law to prosecute consumers that do unauthorised copying; they just refuse to take advantage of the laws that are already present.”

The WAIA concluded that the legal action doesn’t make sense, and won’t stop unauthorised copying.

“And the real issue is that no matter what the outcome of this case, you still won’t be able to purchase the latest James Bond movie online for viewing at home.”

Update: Read the latest on the WAIA story here .

downloadiinetmoviepiracytelco/isp