Consumers ignored in internet piracy crackdown

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ScreenHunter_3598 Aug. 04 15.39

By Leith van Onselen

Attorney General, George Brandis, has continued his hard line against internet piracy, refusing to accept the High Court’s iiNet decision in 2012, which found that internet service providers could not be found liable for authorising an act by a subscriber that infringes copyright. From The Australian:

“Obviously ISPs don’t want to pay to make a contribution. Their argument is that, ‘well, we’re the innocent bystander’.

“Well, they’re not an innocent bystander because they are an unwitting facilitator.

“We expect the ISPs to make a contribution to the cost of administrating the scheme. No side in this debate can pretend that it is uninvolved”.

…the government is determined to step into the policy gap left by the iiNet case, and if need be, we will legislate.”

Meanwhile, Communications Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, continues to take a more measured approach, towards internet policy. In 2012, Turnbull supported the High Court’s decision in relation to the iiNet case, describing it as follows:

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“I think the High Court came to the right decision and I really welcome it… It is very, very, very difficult if not impossible for someone that is just selling connectivity, just providing bandwidth to then be monitoring what people are doing.”

And now, Turnbull has invited the chief executives of Australia’s biggest media companies and leading internet ­service providers to make their case for reform to internet policy at a forum which the government expects to host later this month.

As I noted last week, it is one year since the IT Pricing Inquiry – the Parliamentary Committee tasked with finding why Aussies pay so much for digital-related content – released its 150-page report to the Government on how to reduce the so-called “Australia Tax” (i.e. price gouging). The report recommended, among other things, an end to geo-blocking of content and amendments to the Copyright Act to allow parallel imports and circumvention of technological protection measures that control geographic market segmentation (summary of report here).

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It is unfortunate that the Abbott Government has completely ignored the issues outlined by the IT Pricing Inquiry, and instead sided with rent-seeking copyright owners in implementing draconian measures that would task ISPs with playing the role of policeman, in turn pushing-up internet costs for end-users.

In refusing to address the underlying reasons why Australian “illegally” download – i.e. lack of content availability and extortionate pricing – the government has ignored the interests of consumers, who have unfortunately become the forgotten voice in the Government’s “war on piracy”.

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About the author
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.