After a year in which we’ve seen Big Media ride roughshod over their customers and do everything they could to rein in, if not destroy, the Internet, I have a ray of sunshine for you. Hollywood and the rest of big media is busy trying to strong arm Australia’s ISPs to spy on their customers so they can identify “pirates.” One ISP, iiNet, has had enough and told the Hollywood thugs to sod off.
TorrentFreak is reporting that iiNet has walked out of talks with Hollywood aimed at reaching an agreement over monitoring users for infringing activity. They make some good points
- iiNet is not the Internet Police. It’s not appropriate for them to monitor their customers.
- Hollywood wants the ISPs to collect and store data for Hollywood’s use but at their own expense. iiNet says this is not their responsibility.
- ISPs have no legal or moral obligation to monitor their customers
- (most importantly) Piracy is a problem of Hollywood’s own making. They refuse to make their content available in a timely manner at a reasonable cost to Australian citizens.
iiNets’s Chief Regulatory Officer Steve Dalby says that iiNet is happy to work with the rights holders but that they have to fix their broken business models first.
It’s great to see an ISP stand up for their customers and refuse to become spies for Hollywood. If only other ISPs would do the same.