iiNet alleges film companies have relationship with BitTorrent

The Federal Court case between iiNet and the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft continued yesterday, with iiNet’s counsel accusing AFACT of having “contractual relationships” with BitTorrent.

Counsel Richard Cobden told the court that some film studios represented by AFACT, including Warner Brothers, Paramount and 20th Century Fox, have their logos on the official BitTorrent site, where users can download the BitTorrent software.

“Nowhere, despite BitTorrent being in a contractual relationship with these key studios, does the site say ‘By the way, try not to download anything owned by Paramount, Warner or Fox’,” he said.

“On the website of a partner of Paramount… nothing says please be careful, don’t infringe on the rights of Paramount.”

Cobden also said that a link to a “torrent” file for Paramount film Cloverfield was “only two screens away from the Paramount logo [on the BitTorrent.com website]”.

Using a torrent file to download a film enables a user to obtain that file for free, by requesting pieces of the file from different users rather than obtaining it from another individual directly.

Cobden said the BitTorrent site contained links to sites such as Torrentz and Mininova, popular sites where users can download torrent files, and also said no warning was given to any users of the BitTorrent client not to download copyrighted material.

He said the industry was “engaged wholeheartedly in the promotion of BitTorrent”, and said iiNet had no relationship with any of the mentioned sites.

“It’s important to make clear that iiNet did not develop BitTorrent; iiNet doesn’t update… distribute… [or] endorse BitTorrent,” he alleged. “iiNet says that BitTorrent can be misused and indeed internal documents warn people [staff] about that.”

Cobden argued iiNet should not be expected to contact every one of its users who engages in internet piracy, saying film companies should take responsibility.

“If all the notices iiNet received from film studios over a five month period were printed it would take 180 large folders and more than 12 trolleys to bring them into the court,” Cobden said. “iiNet doesn’t want to be the judge, jury and executioner, it wants the studios to do their own dirty work.”

Additionally, iiNet’s counsel argued AFACT had brought the case to court based on a carefully constructed investigation process.

“This has all been carefully laid out for the purpose of creating the authorisation infringement (case),” Cobden said, presenting a number of emails as early as 2007 that indicated the Internet Industry Association was cooperating with AFACT to stop file-sharing.

But in August 2008 the discussions stopped, with Cobden alleging the decision was made because AFACT was not interested in stopping illegal file-sharing, and that it was “hardly the response of” an organisation interested in reducing piracy.

Instead, he says this would be expected from an organisation with the “intention to get on with bringing the case for authorisation infringement”.

The case is set to continue today.