Australian music industries threatens providers with lawsuit

November 26, 2003

The German publisher Heise reports in their online newsticker, that the Australian music association ARIA is about to sue internet providers, for not preventing their users from copying music through the internet

The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) is planning lawsuits against internet providers that do not prevent their users from downloading illegal music via the internet. ARIA-manager Michael Speck claims that the providers generate 20% of their sales with users violating copyrights.

The providers agree on helping the copyright holders but they refuse being made responsible for activities of their customers. Contrary to the US music industry, the Australian has no plans to sue private customers.

I wonder how the providers should be able to prevent users from exchanging illegal data through the internet. The only way to do that is to not let someone use internet at all. If they block port 1214, Kazaa-users would just change to a different port and continue downloading. And how should they be able to distinguish between legal and illegal downloads from a webserver?

Source: Heise.de