Major Australian ISPs Begin Fight Against Piracy

Five of Australia’s largest Internet service providers, members of the Communications Alliance, revealed their anti-piracy plans which seem to replicate the three-strike law already implemented by other countries.

Telstra Bigpond, iiNet, Optus, iPrimus and Internode plan on fully collaborating with copyright holders in an effort to diminish the piracy phenomenon as much as possible, reports ABC News.

In a process that will last one and a half years, rights holders would provide IP addresses and evidence of copyright infringement to ISPs, who will then send warnings to the account holders involved.

These warnings will come in the form of educational notices that are served for up to three times to each customer that’s identified as being involved in piracy acts. If the third strike is reached, the organizations that represent the copyright holders will file lawsuits against the individuals that break the law.

“We believe the notice scheme can greatly reduce online copyright infringement in Australia while protecting consumer rights, educating consumers about how to access legal online content, and helping rights holders to protect their rights,” said John Stanton of Communications Alliance.

“Equally important is the need for rights holders to ensure that consumers have access to legal and affordable content online, to reduce the motivation to source content in ways that might be illegal.”

The new regulation dictates that each ISP may send up to 100 notices each month to avoid large costs, but John Linton, the owner of a smaller ISP, Exetel, claims that his company practices such policies for seven years now and the limitation is absurd since the process is very simple and cost-efficient.

Since everything is still only on paper, some further details will have to be discussed with the representatives of the industries involved, but judging by the rate of success recorded in other countries, most probably they’ll be more than anxious to settle an agreement.