Australian ISPs are taking action to combat online piracy

Recently, FutureofCopyright reported that the Australian Attorney-General Robert McClelland proposed to modify the Australian Copyright Act 1968. The change entails that copyright holders have the possibility to request the court to force ISPs to handover identifying information (names and addresses) of potential copyright infringers to the holders.

Now, Australian ISPs want to negotiate a deal in which they could hand over identifying information to copyright owners, without intervention of a judge. The proposal is made by the Communications Alliance, an interest group for the Australian telecommunications industry, which states that ISPs agree on a pact with the content industry to combat the distribution of illegal content over P2P networks.

If the deal is closed there will be a test period of eighteen months in which copyright owners are able to report the alleged infringer to the ISP. Then, the ISP sends an ‘educational message’ to the alleged infringer pointing out the violations and the possible consequences. After that the infringer has three weeks to respond. If the infringements continue, the infringer can expect three more warnings. Subsequently, if the infringer doesn’t stop his infringements after the third warning, the ISP provides identifying information (name and address) to the holders.

The ISP’s pact looks a lot like the ‘three strikes out’ policy which may come into force in Australia (it still needs to be adopted by the Australian government). However, contrary to the ‘three strikes out’ policy, no judge will be involved in this whole process.

The proposition of the Communications Alliance can be read here.

Reference: Webwereld.nl

By: Karen Groen