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The Australian Communications Minister is proposing "game changing" laws crack down on Piracy by forcing search engines such as Google to filter content results thereby removing the path people have to finding illegal content online.
[...] Under the proposed laws to be introduced to Parliament today, authorities will also be able to force search engines like Google to stop "unashamedly facilitating crime" by promoting pirate sites that allow internet users to illegally download music or films.
Graham Burke, chief executive of Australian film company Village Roadshow, last night hailed the new laws as game-changing for the industry while slamming Google for acting "as evil as Big Tobacco" in its online behaviour.
"We stand ready to be co-operative with Google. We see good Google and bad Google. But bad Google is as evil as Big Tobacco was 30 years ago. They know what they're doing. They know they're facilitating and enabling crime and it's time for them to clean their act up," he told News Corp.
He accused Google of "unashamedly facilitating crime" by taking people to criminal pirate websites.
Does the Australian government really need to give weapons to special interest groups to enforce civil laws the majority of people do not support?
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Friday October 19 2018, @04:00PM (3 children)
Below a certain threshold, copyright infringement is indeed only a tort. Above that threshold, a single act can constitute both a tort and a crime. I don't know the Australian law, but in the United States, the threshold is $2,500.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 19 2018, @04:17PM (2 children)
Alright - and how many files are worth $2500? That woman who was prosecuted, and ordered to pay millions of dollars certainly didn't download or share $2500 worth of songs. Jamie, something or other - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records,_Inc._v._Thomas-Rasset [wikipedia.org]
24 songs aren't worth $2500 bucks, to anybody, unless you happen to be selling the rights in their entirety.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @04:41PM (1 child)
The vulturous parasites that comprise the RIAA's legal teams cannot suffer enough. If a judge had asked them "So, is it your position that each song is worth more than you charge per hour?" they would have had to admit their inflationary tactics or commit perjury.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 19 2018, @04:49PM
RIAA should be outlawed on the basis of collusion. The various companies represented by RIAA are colluding in many different ways, basically to entrap people.