Australian ISP Helps Customers Against Copyright Trolls

The chief executive of an Australian ISP reveals that his company will try to protect their account holders against those who blackmail them to pay settlement fees in order to drop copyright infringement cases.

According to Delimiter, John Linton, the CEO of internet service provider Exetel declared war against copyright trolls by investing more than $200,000(140,000 EUR) in resources that will protect their clients.

The whole thing started after a new company called Movie Rights Group (MRG) began contacting Australian ISPs demanding they give up the owners of certain IPs that might be involved in copyright infringement issues.

It seems as MRG is taking a different approach to the copyright matter as they are seeking each individual trying to convince them to settle everything outside a courtroom. This means that they get a lot of money and they don't have to spend anything on judiciary fees.

After realizing what's happening, the CEO decided to take action against them to make sure they won't make a profit from their customers which might quickly give in to threats.

“The appearance of scum like the Movie Group [has] forced Exetel to have to consider the base ways we operate the core systems of our business, simply because we must now consider which is the greater of the evils our current society has forced us to confront,” Linton wrote on his blog.

“In this case, it is do we go out of our way to protect those of our customers who knowingly and willfully steal other people’s property or do we allow them to be exposed to even scummier elements of our society … who might be able, amazingly and disappointingly, to use the Australian court system to allow them to be blackmailed?”

It's not yet clear how they will manage to help their account holders, but one possibility is that they might stop keeping track of which IP belongs to what client or even change them periodically to make sure they can't be held responsible in a courtroom.