February 4th, 2010 
Cliff Riseborough 
As reported on Ars Technica, Australia’s Federal Court has made a ruling that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are under no obligation to act on copyright infringement notices passed on to users by media companies. The ruling was handed down today.
The case stems from movie studios being angered when iiNet refused to act upon warning letters sent by the studios to various iiNet customers alleging illegal downloading as a basis for cutting off Internet service to those customers. Instead, iiNet sent the notices on to the police, saying that it was not a legal body capable of determining guilt. The movie studios responded by suing iiNet in 2008 under claims that the ISPs inaction counted as ‘authorizing’ piracy.
iiNet CEO Michael Malone explained that while his company does have a policy of Internet termination for those proven to be infringing upon copyright, the notices he was receiving from the studios were simply alleging infringement. He made similar comments in a 2008 article in ComputerWorld Australia concerning the case :
We have been passing on all those complaints directly on to the state police—who are in our building. They send us a list of IP addresses and say ‘this IP address was involved in a breach on this date.’ We look at that say, ‘Well, what do you want us to do with this? We can’t release the person’s details to you on the basis of an allegation and we can’t go and kick the customer off on the basis of an allegation from someone else.’ So we say, ‘You are alleging the person has broken the law; we’re passing it to the police. Let them deal with it.’
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