Australia Blocked Pirate Bay, Torrentz, IsoHunt

Now Internet Service Providers in Australia and copyright holders are disputing how to block websites that violates copyright materials.

Village Roadshow and Foxtel are seeking to force internet service providers like Telstra, Optus and TPG to block file-sharing websites IsoHunt, The Pirate Bay, Torrentz, TorrentHound and SolarMovie.

“Applicants will need to form the view by the simple Whois search that the IP associated with the new path is outside of Australia,”

“[ISPs can be notified] and then that can become part of a bundle of sites regulated.

“[ISPs] want a more elaborate process where we have to prepare an affidavit, come back to court for an additional order.

“It provides additional costs, delays and inefficiency in [complying with the injunction].”

Mr Lancaster said.

 

The legislation prescribes that rights holders need to show that the “online location” which infringes or facilitates an infringement of the copyright is outside of Australia.

Rights holder lawyers spent much of the hearing trying to define exactly what an “online location” actually was.

“It’s clear in our submission that it is not specific URLs or IP addresses,”

Mr Lancaster said on Thursday.

“As the cases overseas, particularly in UK, have identified there is an ongoing problem with what you can call workarounds by site operators where new URLs or IP addresses are registered to provide access to same material but by a different pathway.”

Justice John Nicholas sought a technical explanation of the evidence and recalled KordaMentha computer forensics expert Nigel Carson on Friday morning.

“Ultimately the online location, as per my report, is really representing itself to the user as a website. It’s a website that sits on a computer,”

“The primary site or the secondary sites are one physical computer or cluster of computers that represent themselves as one computer.”

Justice Nicholas later clarified:

“Is it the whereabouts — is that what we’re talking about when we’re talking about an online location?”

Mr Carson said.

Carson replied: “Yes.”

Justice Nicholas later indicated in proceedings he considered online location as being “the same house — the address has just changed”.

The copyright holders believe that the cost of implementing these site blocks — whatever form they may take — should be born by the internet providers.

Mr Lancaster said standard practice was for parties subject to an injunction to pay for the cost of implementing the blocks.

“If that costs money, that costs money,” he said.

“[ISPs] still profit from the use of service and it’s an appropriate cost of doing business that when the law requires illegal or infringing conduct be blocked … and that requires some action on behalf of the [ISPs] they should bear those costs.”

Telstra’s lawyer said the cost of implementing DNS blocking on the 61 domains would be around $1,500.

He said there was no evidence ISPs benefit from infringing activities.

“The question is then … whether a neutral and innocent party should be obliged to bear the costs of making that order,” he said.

The judge has reserved his decision.

Is there any solution to unblock torrent sites in Australia?