Australian court crushes copyright lobby; rules ISPs not obligated to enforce copyright

Canberra, Australia (TNR) - In a crushing defeat for the international copyright lobby, the Australian Federal Court ruled today that Internet service providers are not obligated to punish customers or turn over their identities because of allegations of copyright infringement.

In his 200 page decision, Justice Dennis Cowdroy, OAM, completely denied the plaintiffs' claim that simply providing Internet access to an alleged copyright infringer is the same as authorizing copyright infringement under Australian law, on the basis that it is the BitTorrent system, and not the ISP, that enables copyright infringement, the ISP does not control BitTorrent, and that torrents may be used for legitimate purposes, making a blanket block improper.