The ISP did not act on AFACT's request, stating that, while copyright infringement was not approved, iiNet was not liable to take action on the basis of allegations.
[4] Early in the proceedings Bannon claimed that "there were 94,942 instances of iiNet customers making available online unauthorised copies" of movies during a 59-week period from 23 June 2008.
[13] On day three it was revealed that iiNet received 1,356 notices requesting "takedown" action against customers, from various sources in a one-week period in early December 2008.
[14] The trial judge, Justice Cowdroy of the Federal Court, found in favour of iiNet, dismissing the case with costs.
[17] Justice Cowdroy determined that iiNet did not have adequate power to prevent users from performing unlawful downloads and had not sanctioned, approved or countenanced copyright infringement.
It is submitted that Mr Malone was determined to advocate the respondent's cause at every opportunity and where he sensed a conflict between that cause and the truth, he was prepared to subordinate the latter in favour of the former.133.
[18] In a statement released by the executive director of AFACT, Neil Gain, the copyright organization has 21 days to appeal the judgement.
[20][21] However, Conroy released a statement saying that he has no plans to push for such an amendment and for ISPs and AFACT to have a "mature" approach to dealing with copyright enforcement.
[23][24]: at para [273] The majority of the Full Court stated that liability was not established as the copyright owners had not provided sufficient information and verification to support their allegations.
[24]: at para [257] Since the decision has been released, notable Australian intellectual property law academics David Brennan,[25] and Kimberlee Weatherall[26] have suggested the outcome is not very favourable for ISPs.
[24]: at para [474] The majority found that iiNet had the technical power to prevent infringement activities by suspending or terminating relevant user accounts.
Justice Jagot established her conclusion on certain findings including that iiNet knew a considerable proportion of BitTorrent traffic involved copyright infringement.
[24]: at para [182] Justice Jagot held that AFACT supplied iiNet with credible evidence of extensive and repeated infringements, contrasting the findings of the majority.
[24]: at para [222] Following Cooper v Universal Music,[31] the majority decided that under section 112E the mere provision of communications facilities do not, by themselves, identify the ISP as an authoriser of infringement.
[citation needed] iiNet claimed that under section 276 of the Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cth), which prevents the disclosure and use of protected information, prohibited it from taking action on AFACT's notices.
[38][39] The IIA has also announced it will seek reform to Australian copyright law to extend certain existing ISP "safe harbour" protections to apply to other intermediaries such as search engine providers and networking websites.
The cable, examined by Delimiter, states that although the case against iiNet was registered by Australian and US content owners and distributors, the prime mover behind it was the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), an active participant in copyright enforcement in the US.
The appeal also focused on whether the Full Court erred in its treatment of the amount of knowledge iiNet required to know before infringement could be validated.
"[48] The appellants, having failed three times, are widely expected to lobby for legislative changes to the Copyright Act 1968 to reverse the effect of this ruling.