Major movie and televisions studios are demanding that Aussie telcos ban a range of sites that grant access to illegal piracy and copyright breaches.
In a case brought to the Federal Court and signed by major entertainment publishers such as Netflix, Disney, Paramount, Warner Bros, Roadshow, Colombia and Universal, over 50 telcos have been ordered to ban 52 websites that allow Australians to access, copy or and download the content “without license or authorization”.
“The owners or operators of the Target Online Locations demonstrate a disregard for copyright generally, in that they provide easy access to the copyright works of others.”
“To the Applicants’ knowledge, there is not likely to be an impact on any person or class of persons by reason of the grant of the injunction sought in the Originating application, except the owners or operators of the Target Online Locations, and users who wish to use the Target Online Locations to infringe copyright.”
Court documents have revealed that content affected by privacy includes Jurassic World, Mulan, Stranger Things 4 and more, including films dubbed in Tamil and Hindi.
Publishers have offered to cover the costs of blocking the sites, and will pay telcos $50 per website blocked, for what they say in the best interests of the public.
The 57 telcos named in the case include Aussie Broadband, Optus, Telstra, TPG, Vodafone and more.
This is the second time legal action has been launched against telcos with the aim of shutting down pirating sites, with the first launched last year.
“Previously, the argument for many Australians was that they couldn’t get access to the content, so they pirate,” said Marc C-Scott, senior screen media lecturer at Victoria University.
“But that argument doesn’t stand up as much now, because we have access to more streaming services and there are many more to come.”
