Anti-copyright group wants individual users be held accountable for piracy

PIRATES, you have been warned.

More than 50 pirate websites — illegally sharing movies and TV shows — will be blocked in Australia within days.

And anti-copyright theft group Creative Content Australia went further and warned individual movie pirates would be next to face courts, with plans to sue any Australian who “continues to download pirated content”.

The move comes after the Federal Court ruled in favour of filmmakers and pay-TV provider Foxtel in two separate cases yesterday.

The targeted internet service providers have 15 days to disable access to the online locations found to have been engaging in or facilitating copyright infringement.

The two cases in NSW Federal Court, brought by Roadshow Films and Foxtel, which is jointly owned by Telstra and News Corp, ordered internet service providers to block access to 59 websites and 127 web domains delivering access to copyright-infringing material.

The sites include PrimeWire, MegaShare, EZTV, Limetorrents, Project Free TV, and Watch Series.

In his judgment, Federal Court Justice John Nicholas said some sites acknowledged they were sponsoring theft and even provided tutorials on how to “frustrate any legal action”, showing “flagrant and reflect a blatant disregard for the rights of copyright owners”.
Creative Content Australia chairman Graham Burke said the new judgments would mean a total of 65 piracy sites and 340 domains would be blocked in Australia, in what could prove a significant blow for online piracy.

“This is a historic moment for Australia to have what is effectively 95 per cent of the criminal trade blocked,” he said.
“It’s making it harder (to pirate shows) and way riskier.”

Mr Burke, who also serves as co-chief executive officer for Village Roadshow, said Creative Content Australia would also use the opportunity to launch the country’s biggest anti-piracy education campaign, including TV ads in which actor Bryan Brown highlighted piracy risks, such as malware and identity theft.

But Mr Burke warned individual users would be held accountable for pirating movies and TV shows in future, as the organisation would launch legal action against Australians who broke the law.

“We plan, later this year, to sue any individual that continues to download pirated content,” he said.

“If we find that someone is infringing our content, we’ll send them a warning and we’ll also be suing them for damages.”

Mr Burke said the industry would not be seeking “outrageous” amounts of money from people who download content illegally but sums equivalent to “a speeding fine”.

“This is theft and it affects anyone who creates quality creative content,” he said.

Foxtel chief executive Peter Tonagh said blocking access to pirate sites was an important part in stopping online theft, including torrents of shows like Game of Thrones, the Foxtel show that has been the most pirated series in the world for the last five years.

“Foxtel welcomes today’s judgment as another critical step in combating online privacy, which continues to undermine Australia’s creative industry,” he said.

Research from Carnegie Mellon University on the effect of blocking piracy websites found blocking just one, such as The Pirate Bay “only caused a small reduction in total piracy,” but blocking several major sites “caused a meaningful reduction” in illegal downloads.

It also led to an increase in subscribers to legal providers, with Netflix seeing an average boost of 12 per cent, while heavy piracy site users increased their use of paid sites by 23 per cent.