Don’t get me wrong, I am a strong defender of the rights of copyright holders to enforce their rights. In this case, however, the film studios really overstepped their bounds and the Australian judge laid what I consider to be a well-deserved smackdown upon them:

In a definitive defeat for film studios—and in a first case of its kind worldwide—Australia’s Federal Court has ruled that ISPs have no obligation to act on copyright infringement notices or to disconnect subscribers after receiving multiple letters. If copyright holders want justice for illegal file-sharing, they need to start by targeting the right people: those who committed the infringement.

[The ruling] concerns iiNet, the third largest ISP in Australia, which was sued in 2008 by a group of movie studios—many of them American—for not doing enough to stop copyright infringement. Letters sent to iiNet were treated as allegations rather than facts and were therefore not acted upon; iiNet instead sent the letters on to the police, saying that it would not act unless a court first ruled that actual infringement had occurred. [...]

As [iiNet CEO Michael] Malone [wrote in a] forum post, the issue should be handled by the relevant authorities; he had no wish to start acting like a private copyright cop. “With the evidence that AFACT has, I’m betting that a magistrate will happily issue an order for us to disclose the account holder’s identity for under $50. AFACT can then directly contact the customer, warn them, raid them, or sue them. Whatever the action, it will then be overseen by the independent legal system.”

The judge agreed, saying that the law “recognises no positive obligation on any person to protect the copyright of another. The law only recognises a prohibition on the doing of copyright acts without the licence of the copyright owner or exclusive licensee, or the authorisation of those acts.”

I always like it when 20th century judges can take in the facts of the 21st century problem and come down on the side of justice.