Australian Internet service providers raided: music piracy
Posted on 06/03/03 13:38 by Dennis                             
Australian Internet service providers raided: music piracy

NickSTAR used our newssubmit to tell us that Austalian Internet service providers (ISPs) 'Telstra' and 'Eftel' have been raided over an investigation into alleged music piracy, which could be worth up to $60 million:


It's understood the police were seeking information about the identities of particular subscribers, as well as music files that may have been stored by them on servers.

According to sources, the wholesale value of the allegedly pirated music may be as high as $60 million - making it one of Australia's largest copyright infringement investigations.

Simon Ehrenfeld, the chief executive of Eftel parent company Datafast Telecommunications, said the company had co-operated with police, and had provided information relating to a subscriber. The ISP had also closed the subscriber's website.

A Telstra spokesman confirmed a police search had been undertaken, but said "these things happen all the time".Eftel has about 50,000 subscribers. Telstra has about 1.4 million.


Warrants were also executed at several other un-named internet service providers, with more warrants possible as the investigation continues.

Source: Australian IT

Reactions
Discuss this article with your fellow community members! We appreciate your valuable input, but please keep the reaction policy in mind and make sure your reaction is constructive.
By Guest, Thursday 06 March 2003 18:51
The Australian police deserve to rot in hell. Don't those bastards have better things to do then investigate a victimless crime like copyright infringement? Where in the hell did they come up with a number like $60 million? That is just bullshit! Just more bitching and whinning from the music industry, but this time in another country. Does anyone know which country has the strictest copyright laws? Does anyone know of a country that has no copyright law or one that is very mild?
By Guest, Thursday 06 March 2003 21:21
Marvel Broadcast If plain common sense and logic of right and wrong doing won't convince wolverine and his gang of marvel marauders that downloading movies /music without the owners consent is wrong, then an upstate county prison gangbang and such will do great lengths to convice him otherwise hehe. devil Stay tuned to see wether he escapes this fate or succumbs to his own greed of marval mayhem as a result of stupidity; we now take you to a commercial break... :4 The ISP shoulda known better than to store that much music in their possession...
By man, Thursday 06 March 2003 21:54
Assuming each cd costs $20. $60million = 3 millions CD Also assuming each cd after converted to mp3 is about 60MB (1 min = 1MB) It has 180,000 GB It is a very big number. I guess they include the file swapped by Kazaa too If 10 thousands people are caught because of committing illegal Kazaa file swapping activities, in average each person has to save about 18GB mp3 files on their HD/Server. I just can't imagine more than 10,000 people jailed and locked up. Australia population is 18 millions and the file swappers are more prevalent among those are 40 yrs old. It means there is one criminal in every 900 person. I think Bush and Blair should send their troop to down under to conquer this evil country.
By Guest, Friday 07 March 2003 00:51
Just in case there's some confusion about this, the feds are targetting people who are using the ISP's servers to store MP3's. IMO, those people "deserve to rot in hell" Stick Out Tongue The police are as innocent as two year old kidnapped babies!
By man, Friday 07 March 2003 01:47
nickstar, I really doubt there are 180TB MP3 files in any isp server even in combination.
By Guest, Friday 07 March 2003 02:53
This is a piracy case so naturally we can assume the figures are overexaggerated. My guess is they came up with the $60M by multiplying the retail price of the recorings by the number of times they assume it has been downloaded. Of course the retail price doesn't the equal value or even the cost to the music industry as there are transport costs and retail markups that don't apply. Not to mention the music industry believe thier product is more sought after than the holy grail and will assume the music has been downloaded by every single person who hasn't already bought it. That's my 2 - make that 52 (I like to exaggerate too) - cents.
By Guest, Friday 07 March 2003 03:54
When I say police, I mean any type of law enforcement that would go after free distribution of copyrighted material.
Name: Email:



Your comment:

Receive notification on new comments?