Sometimes you look around at the way digital culture is intersecting with the mainstream and you start to lose hope that people will ever start to properly get it. It's like sitting down with that special someone in front of an episode of Arrested Development and realising that in the absence of a laugh track they don't understand that it's actually supposed to be funny. Loose analogy, yes, but I was really just looking for an excuse to link to this video. So off-putting.

This feeling has been especially prevalent in Australia of late, with the Federal Government seemingly hellbent on implementing a internet filter which is at best a waste of time and money, and at worst an insidious tool for the suppression of the freedom of speech, while this week the South Australian government has been forced to back down from a plan to force online commentators on the impending SA election to actively identify themselves, a plan which was at best a waste of time and money, and at worst an insidious tool for the suppression of the freedom of speech.

But finally a glimmer of light in this battle between the internet and the institution: Justice Dennis Cowdroy (hereafter 'HERO JUDGE') this morning handed down a judgment in the case of iiNet v. everybody who has ever had even the most peripheral contact with the film industry. That includes video store clerks. Just so you know what's at stake here. The case revolved around the assertion of the film industry that by not cutting off users who were suspected of illegally using BitTorrent technology to distribute movies, iiNet was essentially acting as a party to the offence and were therefore directly liable to the film industry. Much like holding the makers of Tom & Jerry responsible for animal cruelty.



Again, loose analogy, but there's something about the image of Jerry quite brutally force-feeding Tom a set of pool balls that found itself forever engraved in 5-year old Luke's mind. That mouse was a sadist. Nonetheless, given France's recent implementation of a three-strikes and you're banned from the Internet rule, and the UK's seeming eagerness to follow in its footsteps (pretty much the first time the two have properly agreed since 1940), it seemed entirely possible that the judge in this case would be inclined to follow a similar pattern of reasoning.

Fortunately, the judgment has come down in iiNet's favour, and it can be summarised in one line:

"I find that iiNet did not authorise the infringements of copyright of the iiNet users."


Of course there's a lot more to it than that, but exonerating ISPs of responsibility for the actions of their users means that us users are in no imminent danger of a) being evicted from the Internet for marginal offences; b) having our download limits/speeds capped in an effort to dissuade "pirates"; or c) being shot out of a cannon. HERO JUDGE gave three reasons why he thought iiNet was in the clear here:


"[F]irst because the copyright infringements occurred directly as a result of the use of the BitTorrent system, not the use of the internet, and the respondent did not create and does not control the BitTorrent system; second because the respondent did not have a relevant power to prevent those infringements occurring; and third because the respondent did not sanction, approve or countenance copyright infringement."


Hip hip for common sense. You can find a handy set of highlights from the judgment here. Looks like the A in AFACT stood for Assholery.

With all of that said, this is only a starting point. Appeals could well be pending and the case really dealt only with torrenting. Moreover, it still doesn't settle many of the broader and far more vexed arguments surrounding intellectual property in the digital age, but it is definitely a reassuring gesture from Australia against an international backdrop where Governments the world over seem to be falling over themselves in their rush to kowtow to the merest whims of the media production industries. But those arguments are a different type of flying altogether. Which is a pretty obscure reference to the 1980 spoof Flying High!, and really only got thrown in so I had an excuse to include the following collection.



So very loose.