[wellylug] Creative Freedom - a Response

[Geraint Jones]

There seems to be a lot of mis-understanding around this amendment,

 From an end user perspective it is business as usual - all ISP's have 
an AUP, and in that AUP 99% of them have a statement like this :

for example Telstra's AUP :

"You agree not to use the Internet services or attempt to use or allow 
the Internet services to be used :

    * in any way that is unlawful"


Like it or not, copyright infringement is unlawful and has been for a 
very long time. all the amendments do is put the liability for 
non-action upon the ISP, the burden of proof is still with the person 
seeking to enfoce their cease and desist notice. Traditionally the come 
back from an ISP could be "sorry, what are users do is not within our 
control so its upto you to get them to stop" - no longer can that be used.

There is a huge amount of FUD (or as i prefer to call it steaming horse 
manure) propagating over this amendment. The wording is open-ended for 
sure :

*Internet service provider liability*

/92A Internet service provider must have policy for terminating accounts 
of repeat infringers/

    * (1) An Internet service provider must adopt and reasonably
      implement a policy that provides for termination, in appropriate
      circumstances, of the account with that Internet service provider
      of a repeat infringer.
    * (2) In subsection (1), repeat infringer means a person who
      repeatedly infringes the copyright in a work by using 1 or more of
      the Internet services of the Internet service provider to do a
      restricted act without the consent of the copyright owner.

As the ammendment doesnt tell us what "appropriate circumstances" are 
this can be taken to mean the ISP just has to comply - but the other 
side of the fence is that the person persuing the termination has to 
prove that they are seeking the termination of "a person who repeatedly 
infringes the copyright" - if they can prove that to me - and i will aid 
them in tying IP's to users if needed then the user should be terminated.

If you don't do anything unlawful you have nothing to worry about - if 
you do do unlawful things, then get smarter.

G