The verdict is out in the case of numerous media/entertainment companies versus an ISP over in australia.

The entertainment companies wanted a ruling that an ISP is responsible for the actions of their customers - so they sued an ISP for "allowing copyright infringement to occur".

Now, we can't have that. If someone breaks copyright then they should be responsible for their own actions, not their ISP, not the mail service, not the maker of the fax machine, not the people who built a photo sharing website.

Commonsense prevailed, and the judge ruled in favour of the ISP. The entertainment companies now must pay the ISPs legal costs.

I've picked some of that commonsense from within the judge's ruling:

In summary, in this proceeding, the key question is: Did iiNet authorise copyright infringement? The Court answers such question in the negative for three reasons: first because the copyright infringements occurred as a result of the use of the BitTorrent system, not the user of the internet, and the respondent did not create and does not control the BitTorrent system; second because the respondent did not have a relevant power to prevent those infringements occurring; and third because the respondent did not sanction, approve or countenance copyright infringement.

On the incorrect use of the word "theft" to describe copyright infringment:

The arty types over at Creative Freedom have put out a press release on the impending announcement of replacement Section 92a copyright laws in NZ.

high level summary:
* John Key already called the old law draconian
* Internet termination is not something that 10,000 NZ artists want done in their name
* There's a bigwig Hollywood lobbyist in town trying to convince NZ govt to give us less rights than a US citizen would have.
* 30-37% of accusations have been proven false (how many are proven true?)
* Entertainment industry statistics have been show to be unscientific (or just plain made up lies)
* Australia called entertainment industry stats "self serving hyperbole"

“NZFACT claim that millions of dollars are lost to online infringement despite not actually selling box office movies online, which raises the obvious question of whether millions are lost due to illegal downloads, or unsatisfied customers.”

Over in Australia, that giant group of "movie industry" companies failed to convince the judge of the merit in their case against an ISP for "allowing copyright infringement".    

The Sydney Morning Herald Blogs: Gadgets on the Go

Movie studios suing Australian internet provider iiNet have dropped some charges, no longer claiming the ISP directly infringed copyright laws by refusing to disconnect customers downloading pirate movies.

The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft, representing various copyright holders, had accused iiNet of committing "conversion" - directly infringing copyright by interfering with the copyright holders' "rights of possession". The charge was dropped after AFACT lawyers failed to convince Federal Court judge, Justice Dennis Cowdroy, of its merit. The judge has ordered the studios pay iiNet's court costs relating to that claim. 

Whenever this ISP recieved an accusation of copyright infringment, they would pass the matter onwards to the Australian police. The ISP did not wish to become the unpaid copyright police for large movie studios, nor were they qualified for such a job.

The remaining charges revolve around whether iiNet is liable for the actions of its users and their alleged copyright infringement.

UN report says NT intervention 'discriminatory'Source: www.abc.net.au

The United Nations Human Rights Committee is calling on the Federal Government to redesign its 'discriminatory' intervention into Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory.     official report on Australia's racist policies for their state called "Northern Territories".

ASEAN - Australia - New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA) | ASEAN - Australia - New Zealand FreSource: asean.fta.govt.nzThe official guide to the AANZFTA FTA including tools and resources for doing business in ASEAN countries.

Telecommunications Carriers Forum have been working on a policy to help ISPs comply with NZ's new copyright law.

That would be this law:

Section 92A: An Internet Service Provider must adopt and reasonably implement a policy that provides for termination, in appropriate circumstances, of the account with that Internet service provider of a repeat infringer

They don't expect to have this complete in time for 28th February when this law comes into effect. So they're released a note with some advice

One section re-iterates the liability if ISPs don't act apon accusations and disconnect their own customers:

In Australia, under a provision which is worded almost exactly the same as our section 92A, the ISP community by and large has decided that it is not appropriate to terminate internet accounts on the basis of allegation only and that a Court order is required before they will act. Notices from rightsholders alleging infringement have been referred to the Police. As a result, 34 film and television companies are suing one significant ISP in Australia for failing to take appropriate action.

OCA Research Review: Year in Review: Copyright Law Other CountriesSource: ocarr.blogspot.comIndustry representatives began lobbying for the introduction of a graduated response/three strikes scheme in Australia however to date ISPs have refused to cooperate.[1]CanadaDespite not being passed as yet in Canada, reforms to the copyright law were negotiated throughout 2008. ...    i think i'll move to norway - seems to have the ost blanced response - A new forum for hearing of copyright infringement complaints where the accused won't need to cave in due to lack of funds to defend themselves -- and DRM is illegal.     

Help! - Need a FOSS speech-to-text application » what are we doing today, brain?Source: pipka.orgI need to be able to have speech translated on the fly to text for deaf children in classrooms around Australia. If anyone either has some suggestions or some experience in this, please either email me or leave a comment. ...

EFF:Source: secure.eff.orgIn October 2007 the United States, the European Community, Switzerland and Japan simultaneously announced that they would negotiate a new intellectual property enforcement treaty, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA. Australia, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand and Mexico have joined the negotiations.

AUSTRALIA - Net censorship plan backlashSource: www.theage.com.auAs opposition grows againstthe Government's controversial plan to censor the internet, the head of one of Australia's largest ISPs has labelled the Communications Minister the worst we've had in the past 15 years.

hurrah for Mauricio - who arrived with a cdma <-> wifi router thingie and provided us with intartubes at the hotel.

Sunday involved lotsa slide preparation for my colleague (there really is nothing like the last minute) - for me i meet a lot of people, some i've only known online.

We picked up loot - the usual conference bag and paper spammage - a bottle of wine - shirts (not t-shirts, first noticable opensource/microsoft difference).

The Wellington linux conference australasia bid was all submitted on time yesterday... thanks to the huge amount of work by Susanne our team barrister, and the mighty leadership of Andrew (aka puck).

Even if we aren't successful (and i seriously hope we are, our bid is kick ass!), it was a great thing to see so much of Wellington, New Zealand, and Australia's opensource community help out with the Bid organising and the final document.

The ASUS eeepc was the first to make sub-notebook computing really happen. Some credit the OLPC (one laptop per child) as the first, but they are a very niche target (education in equator climates) and they fail to ship to remote places like New Zealand (or even to Australia). I like the the Stephen Fry quote that i'll proceed to misquote as "eeepc: i'll always remember you as the first of what was to come".

in the original press release, still up on apple.com and vodafone.com, vodafone nz announced iphone for both contract and prepay.

I'm off to Sydney for a couple days, and so I asked twitter what to pack(i've never seen Australia in winter before)http://twitter.com/singingfish/statuses/808926042I like the description - 10 to 25 degrees, not much rain, and a good supply of rainbow coloured umbrellas are on hand.

overheard at the table next to us last night at dinner:"those f@#$ foreigners don't even know f#$@ english! They think they do do but you can't understand a f#$% word they f$@@ say. Why are they let them into our country?"please someon tell me that's not acceptable behavour in Australia.

The company corporate loaned me a laptop for the event, and i eagerly installed edgy, resizing ntfs partitions to fit it in there - - then alas, i realise it doesn't have wifi!!

This morning i have another laptop on loan, and I'm franticaly trying to get wifi working on this toshiba.
took me a while, because somehow aptitude couldn't find any kernel headers for brand new my edgy eft.