Earlier this month we reported that the Federal Court had
dismissed a claim by a multi-national alliance of motion picture
and recording industry companies, represented by the Australian
Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), that
iiNet, Australia's third largest internet service provider, had
authorised copyright infringement by failing to stop its customers
from using the otherwise legitimate BitTorrent file sharing
software system to download copyrighted movies. On 25 February
2010, AFACT lodged an appeal against that ruling, sparking another
potentially lengthy round of court action.
It is understood that AFACT's Notice of Appeal contains 15
grounds for appeal and is expected to be heard later this year. The
grounds have not yet been made publically available but AFACT has
indicated in a statement that it views the Federal Court's
decision as rendering the "safe harbour regime
ineffective" for ISPs.
