The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) has still not given up on establishing a legal precedent that would make ISPs responsible for piracy by their users.
The consortium has lodged an appeal seeking to bring its court case against iiNet, Australia's second largest DSL ISP, to the nation's High Court.
AFACT lost its initial battle in the federal court, and an appeal in the appeals court. But the organization – a consortium of 34 copyright holding companies – has claimed it only lost the appeal on technical grounds.
“The court unanimously found that iiNet had the power to prevent the infringements of its users from occurring and that there were reasonable steps it could have taken, including issuing warnings,” AFACT executive director Neil Gane said.
“However two [of three] judges of the Full Court went on to find that iiNet had not authorized the infringements of its users and that is what we are appealing.”
iiNet, which plans to fight the appeal, hit back yesterday stating that the over two-year court battle had not stopped a single illegal download.
CEO Michael Malone toldthe Australian he was confident iiNet would prevail. “We have already won this case in the federal court and the appeals court,” he said.