More on section 92A of the Copyright Act
As you noticed, the original Act lacks details on how ISP should react in relation to copyright holder complains. Telecommunications Carriers' Forum recently published a draft Code of practice and is open for public submission.
I kind of like this code. In summary:
- Four strikes out, final warning after three strikes;
- No matter how many times you infringed copyright, only one time is counted for a month;
- The strike expires 18 months after it was first issued;
- ISP serves you a "education notice" (one strike) when copyright holders made a complain.
- If you dispute, the notice is revoked, and the copyright holder won't get your personal details ( you don't have the right to dispute after three strikes).
- If you don't dispute, that counts as one strike.
- Four strikes, and you are out.
If this is the way the ISPs will act after section 92A comes in force, then I'm pretty happy.This code of practice reminds me of another important Internet copyright Act - DMCA. They are pretty similar as the duty of identifying whether someone infringed copyright ultimately falls to the justice system, and ISP, as a neutral party, only act upon notices.
If you dispute the "education notice", the only way left for copyright holders is to sue you in court, which is quite unlikely in my opinion, unless you've downloaded too many stuffs justifying their cost and benefit analysis.
TCF definitly made a good call.
