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iiNet wins at first instance: judgment now available online #iiTrial

This morning Justice Cowdroy held that iiNet did not authorise copyright infringement for three reasons.  First, the copyright infringement occurred directly as a result of the BitTorrent system, not the use of the internet, and iiNet did not create or control the BitTorrent system.  Second, iiNet did not have a relevant power to prevent those infringements occurring.  Third, iiNet did not sanction, approve or countenance copyright infringement.

In addition to the findings on authorisation, Justice Cowdroy considered all the issues argued before him.  These findings may become more important if (as almost seems inevitable), this judgment is appeal.  His Honour held that:

• the Telecommunications Act would not have operated to to prohibit iiNet from acting on AFACT Notices of infringement.
• s 112E of the Copyright Act would not have operated to prevent a finding of authorisation of copyright infringement against iiNet.
• iiNet did have a repeat infringer policy which was reasonably implemented and that iiNet would therefore have been able to take advantage of the safe habour provisions in Division 2AA of Part V of the Copyright Act if it needed to do so.

This last finding is potentially particularly important for the industry.

Justice Cowdroy has published his reasons (all 200 odd pages of them) and you can find them online here.  I will try to read the judgment this morning and maybe post some thoughts later today.

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Full post as published by Freedom to Differ on February 03, 2010 (boomark / email).