Geek Rant
I wrote this earlier in the week for the tech blog I submit to. It hasn't gone live over there yet, so I'm thinking maybe it's not what the editor had in mind when he sent me the brief.
I'm posting it so that it at least gets read by someone. If it goes up at Tech Wired, I'll remove it from here to keep it exclusive.
I'd be interested to hear your take on the matter.
iiNet Piracy Case First Strike In Oppression Plan?
I wrote this earlier in the week for the tech blog I submit to. It hasn't gone live over there yet, so I'm thinking maybe it's not what the editor had in mind when he sent me the brief.
I'm posting it so that it at least gets read by someone. If it goes up at Tech Wired, I'll remove it from here to keep it exclusive.
I'd be interested to hear your take on the matter.
iiNet Piracy Case First Strike In Oppression Plan?
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
I'm sure you're all aware of the piracy case iiNet is facing, even though the Australian Internet community is generally more vehemently focussed on the Great Barrier Filter debate at the moment. In preparation for writing this article I did some background reading into the case. I haven't read all there is to read (and I'll challenge the veracity of anyone claiming they have). But I tried to read a good cross section of opinion verses fact as well as pieces leaning toward both sides of the debate.
I considered regurgitating other people's facts here, so as to be safe, but the more I read the more one idea became lodged, like a splinter, in my mind. I think the iiNet case and the Filter debate are more closely linked than anyone I've read so far has suggested.
Kimberlee Weatherall from UQ's Law faculty has suggested that the case mounted against iiNet could be a way to attract attention to the government's proposed filter. I think she's right in that they're connected topics, but I'm thinking maybe the connection is a little more nefarious than that.
Let's have a look at the facts:
The government is trying to introduce a sweeping and oppressive internet filter, the burden of which would rest squarely on the shoulders of Internet Service Providers just like iiNet.
iiNet is currently being targeted by a law-suit claiming that it failed to act appropriately when made aware that some subscribers were using the service it provides to obtain and distribute pirated material.
Only two things set iiNet apart from every other ISP in this regard; one is that they once mentioned using a system of local caching to speed up download rates for clients (which is not currently in use) and the other is that Michael Malone, iiNet's founder, is one of the industry's most outspoken opponents of the government's Internet filter plan.
One should ask why it is that iiNet, and not one of the larger ISPs in Australia, is the target of this suit? Massive providers like Optus or Telstra contribute, by sheer number of subscribers, more to the pirate economy than iiNet could ever hope to. So why is this small, Perth-born company that employs fewer than 1500 people being vilified by a group of international media companies who's combined annual profit must reach into the trillions of dollars?
In my mind it seems reasonable that iiNet is being bullied because of Malone's stance on the filter. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that this suit has been prompted or encouraged by our government, considering that the aggrieved parties are all members of the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) and that AFACT claims to work closely with the government to achieve it's aims (one wonders how 'close' that relationship is).
Should this suit fall in favour of the media giants, and there are experts who think it will, all ISPs may become liable to bear the financial penalties of piracy. The media companies' 'lost profits' could be easily recouped from cases against single ISPs, rather than the more laborious process of collecting it from many thousands of individual law-breakers.
Obviously this will not sit well with the ISPs, who will look for ways to protect themselves from this litigation. One option is for them to self-filter by blocking download websites and hampering peer-to-peer technologies, (by blocking torrent sites). In this scenario they become the 'bad guy' and stand to lose subscribers to less restricted ISPs.
Alternatively they can support, or at least cease resisting, the governmental filter project and abdicate guilt for the oppression of subscribers to the government, which will be simultaneously oppressing subscribers to every other available ISP as well.
In short, a decision in this case in favour of the media companies may create an environment wherein opposition to the filter is more financially damaging to ISPs than submission to it.
Methinks this is too good an outcome in the government's interests for them not to have had some hand in engineering it...
I'm sure you're all aware of the piracy case iiNet is facing, even though the Australian Internet community is generally more vehemently focussed on the Great Barrier Filter debate at the moment. In preparation for writing this article I did some background reading into the case. I haven't read all there is to read (and I'll challenge the veracity of anyone claiming they have). But I tried to read a good cross section of opinion verses fact as well as pieces leaning toward both sides of the debate.
I considered regurgitating other people's facts here, so as to be safe, but the more I read the more one idea became lodged, like a splinter, in my mind. I think the iiNet case and the Filter debate are more closely linked than anyone I've read so far has suggested.
Kimberlee Weatherall from UQ's Law faculty has suggested that the case mounted against iiNet could be a way to attract attention to the government's proposed filter. I think she's right in that they're connected topics, but I'm thinking maybe the connection is a little more nefarious than that.
Let's have a look at the facts:
The government is trying to introduce a sweeping and oppressive internet filter, the burden of which would rest squarely on the shoulders of Internet Service Providers just like iiNet.
iiNet is currently being targeted by a law-suit claiming that it failed to act appropriately when made aware that some subscribers were using the service it provides to obtain and distribute pirated material.
Only two things set iiNet apart from every other ISP in this regard; one is that they once mentioned using a system of local caching to speed up download rates for clients (which is not currently in use) and the other is that Michael Malone, iiNet's founder, is one of the industry's most outspoken opponents of the government's Internet filter plan.
One should ask why it is that iiNet, and not one of the larger ISPs in Australia, is the target of this suit? Massive providers like Optus or Telstra contribute, by sheer number of subscribers, more to the pirate economy than iiNet could ever hope to. So why is this small, Perth-born company that employs fewer than 1500 people being vilified by a group of international media companies who's combined annual profit must reach into the trillions of dollars?
In my mind it seems reasonable that iiNet is being bullied because of Malone's stance on the filter. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that this suit has been prompted or encouraged by our government, considering that the aggrieved parties are all members of the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) and that AFACT claims to work closely with the government to achieve it's aims (one wonders how 'close' that relationship is).
Should this suit fall in favour of the media giants, and there are experts who think it will, all ISPs may become liable to bear the financial penalties of piracy. The media companies' 'lost profits' could be easily recouped from cases against single ISPs, rather than the more laborious process of collecting it from many thousands of individual law-breakers.
Obviously this will not sit well with the ISPs, who will look for ways to protect themselves from this litigation. One option is for them to self-filter by blocking download websites and hampering peer-to-peer technologies, (by blocking torrent sites). In this scenario they become the 'bad guy' and stand to lose subscribers to less restricted ISPs.
Alternatively they can support, or at least cease resisting, the governmental filter project and abdicate guilt for the oppression of subscribers to the government, which will be simultaneously oppressing subscribers to every other available ISP as well.
In short, a decision in this case in favour of the media companies may create an environment wherein opposition to the filter is more financially damaging to ISPs than submission to it.
Methinks this is too good an outcome in the government's interests for them not to have had some hand in engineering it...
* Telstra and Optus have very very deep pockets;
* Telstra (through their interest in Foxtel) is a defacto member of AFACT;
* The Australian government continues to hold a 17% direct interest in Telstra and an indirect interest of about 15% (iirc) through it's super fund;
* Optus is a 100% owned subsidiary of Temasek (an arm of the Singapore government and owned 100% by the Ministry of Finance);
(* A quick reminder that Foxtel and Optus Television have a content sharing arrangement
* iiNet is small enough to attack but big enough (and vocal enough) for people to take notice.
And yes, I think this is a way of diverting attention away from the 'Great Barrier Filter' (with its incredibly disturbing non-FoI greylist).
But I think we're all missing the important point here: We need to remember that our elected representatives know best and have our only best interests at heart.