Pirates ride the torrent wave - part iV



By Tuan Van Le

That is not to say Australia does not have copyright laws, we have one of the most comprehensive copyright legislative schemes in the world. But many of the laws are archaic and new technologies such as BitTorrent and eDonkey were not in existence when the laws were first made. Two weeks ago Federal Attorney General Philip Ruddock announced sweeping changes would be made to copyright law in a bill that will be presented to parliament in August this year. Under current law, recording television shows to tape, creating backups of purchased music, and transferring tunes to an Ipod are all illegal. In terms of keeping up with technology, we are light years behind.

But according to Macnamara the problem does not lie in the law, but in its enforcement. “Overall, the BSAA's view is Australia's law is strong and adequate,” he said, “it is the enforcement of the law that is the issue.”

“ Currently, copyright is regularly defended through civil legal action by software vendors. But there have been no criminal cases in Australia in the past five years or more. Very little if any police, Federal or State, resources are focused on this area, even though millions of dollars worth of software products are effectively stolen each year.”

On the other hand, Australia’s music industry have aggressively pursued piracy laws with mixed success. In 2005 a consortium of record labels successfully brought an action which eventually led to the ban of Australian users on the KaZaa network, but they failed to establish the more serious charge of conspiracy that would have made Sharman Networks liable for substantial damages.

In 2003 the industry successfully lobbied the Australian Federal Police to arrest three students from the University of Technology Sydney who setup an mp3 server on the university’s system. During trial, one of the accused plead ignorance to copyright laws despite having produced an essay on the topic. The industry estimated the site cost them AUD$60 million in lost sales. Two of the accused were sentenced to 18 months imprisonment but given suspended sentences, while the other was given 200 hours of community service.

The industry claimed the sentences were too lenient. Michael Speck, General Manager of Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) told ABC Radio on 18 November 2003 the decision was ‘bizarre’.

“I just wonder how much music you have to steal in Australia before you go to jail…the Magistrate got it right, he understood how serious it was, but then decided that even though it was that serious these people should have a vacation,” he said.

Around the world, especially in the United States, the music industry are using ‘shock and awe’ tactics to scare potential away potential pirates. In 2003 the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed 261 lawsuits against computer users who were deemed high use file swappers. One of the users was a twelve-year-old girl, she later settled for US$2,000.

Last year the first BitTorrent criminal case in the world was heard in Hong Kong, where Chan Nai-Ming, with the nickname of ‘Big Crook’, uploaded movies Daredevil, Red Planet and Miss Congeniality to a BitTorrent site. The maximum sentence was four years imprisonment, but Chan was sentenced to three months imprisonment. The Hong Kong arm of the MPAA refused to comment on the sentence.

Ironically, major production studio, Warner Bros, have signed a deal with BitTorrent to use the technology as the basis of their online movie system.

Parker agrees with the move, he believes where prohibition will not work, increased access might be the way. “ In the early days of the video recorder the movie industry felt it would be disastrous, and over time were proved wrong. I believe the same is true of P2P (person to person),” he said.

“The current popularity is fueled by a lack of rich media available for legitimate download such as TV or video shows. Once the industry launches the equivalent of the iTunes media store for video I believe we will see a dramatic fall in the P2P traffic levels."

1 June 2006