Foxtel Planning Legal Action To Force Someone, Anyone, To Block An Illicit Website

For a company that seems so unwilling to do anything at all to modify its own business model and practices to aid industry and consumer efforts to combat piracy, Foxtel is sure obsessed with stamping it out, as reports emerge that the company is planning to mount legal action to force movement on recently introduced anti-piracy site-blocking legislation.

According to the ABC, the company is presently taking advice from lawyers as to "how best to put the legislation into effect", given that, in the month-and-a-bit since it was signed into law on 26 June, nobody has actually used it yet, which makes it that much harder for concerned cable-TV companies to ensure that certain sites such as The Pirate Bay and Kickass Torrents will be blocked from access in Australia due to trading primarily in illicit content.

Objectively, it's a slightly embarrassing — at the least, bemusing — result from the anti-piracy set, who had largely approached the introduction of the legislation with supportive hard-line rhetoric on the damage wrought by illegal downloaders. Indeed, chief executive of Internet Australia Laurie Patton says the user group is "astounded" at the lack of action so far, explaining in a statement: "We would have thought that they'd have a raft of cases ready to go if the problem is that critical."

"Internet Australia is concerned at the tendency of the Government to rush to pass legislation that affects the internet without having any serious proof that it will do what they hope it will do," he said.

However, there will undoubtedly be inter-industry supporters of Foxtel's initiative to get the ball rolling on censoring the internet Down Under, as music bodies such as APRA AMCOS and Music Rights Australia expressed their support for the initiative in late June.

"APRA AMCOS is satisfied that the new copyright Bill takes into account the need to protect the interests of their 87,000+ Australian and New Zealand songwriter and composer members," the body said in a statement at the time. "The passing of the Bill caps off months of lobbying to the Federal Government and Opposition by a coalition of creative arts and media organisations working together."

Meanwhile, Music Rights Australia chief executive Vanessa Hutley struck a similar sentiment in an issued statement: “[The new legislation] gives the creative community an effective tool to disrupt illegal offshore sites which make millions of dollars from advertising but give nothing back to the artists whose work they systematically exploit on a massive scale.

"Australian consumers have over 30 licensed online music sites to choose from across a range of platforms and at price points, including free on advertising supported services, yet these illegal sites have continued to flourish and make money for their operators because there was nothing the copyright owners could do locally to stop them. Until now.”

Still, the lack of action by rights holders in the wake of the legislation's introduction speaks volumes about its necessity, critics say — although, to be fair, nothing happens quickly in the court system, and a handful of weeks isn't really the greatest of sample sizes from which to be declaring over-arching failure or victory.

However, as the ABC reports, the Institute Of Public Affairs' Chris Berg described the law as "transparently absurd" and "not at all a matter of national security, life or death", Internet Australia believes site-blocking is "like using a machine gun to shoot rabbits", and Electronic Frontiers Australia spokesman Jon Lawrence also believes that "evidently this law was neither as urgent nor as necessary as Mr Brandis claimed".

"It is unsurprising that he has seriously misunderstood the reality in this regard given his refusal to consult with consumer representatives," he told the ABC.