Pirate Bay's Peter Sunde says Australia's proposed website blocking scheme won't deter downloaders

Updated

The co-founder of one of the world's most popular file-sharing websites says the Government's proposed legislation to block overseas web services that breach copyright will not deter illegal downloading.

The amendment will allow rights holders to apply to the Federal Court for an order which would force Australian internet service providers to block access to offending sites.

The Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill has received bipartisan support in Parliament and a vote is expected next week.

The bill has been scrutinised by the Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. Senators from both the Liberal and Labor parties recommended that the Parliament support it.

Greens senator Scott Ludlam provided the committee's only dissenting report against the bill.

Critics say it is impossible to block online piracy and argue that it will allow current and future governments to censor whistleblower sites.

The Pirate Bay was the world's most popular file-sharing website until it was recently shut down by Swedish police and splintered into a number of cloned sites.

Last year co-founder Peter Sunde spent five months in a high-security Swedish prison after being convicted for aiding copyright infringement.

How will the website blocking work? The rights-holder, such as a film company or a music publisher, discovers pirated material on a foreign website

The rights-holder makes a case to Australia's Federal court to impose an injunction

In deciding whether to do this, the Federal Court must perform a "primary purpose test": Is the main purpose of the offending website "to infringe, or to facilitate the infringement of, copyright"?

If the court determines that it is, it will order Australian internet service providers to block their clients from accessing the "online location" where the offence occurred

He said Australian politicians are not engaging with the public on the issue.

"If you're actually listening to the people you get your votes from, you should ask them 'do you want this bill?'" he told the ABC.

"I'm pretty sure that if you ask them and you look into how they live their lives, they don't want this.

"And if they do, it's because they haven't really read up on what it means."

Sunde argued that previous attempts by other governments demonstrated how ineffective website-blocking measures are.

"For instance, in Denmark just a few minutes away from here, they tried to block Pirate Bay," he said.

"What happened is that people found very easy ways to circumvent the block, and the traffic from those countries to Pirate Bay spiked afterwards.

"People aren't stupid and there's really easy alternatives to circumvent most of these [website blocking] legislations.

"So it becomes a kind of whack-a-mole game, and like a nuclear arms race as well, because you will have to block the next thing that will help people to circumvent things."

Concerns bill could be used for censorship

Sunde is also concerned that website-blocking mechanisms can become a censorship tool.

"You're just opening up for a torrent of other things that will be censored," he said.

"You should be worried. Not for the file-sharing, but for what it means in the end."

I think we should be looking at some sort of global release strategy, especially for Australians seeing Australian content. Filmmaker Tristan Roache-Turner

Senator Ludlam echoed that view on Lateline, saying the bill will provide a platform for an internet filter.

"It seems to be attacking the issue from the wrong end," he said.

"I think it's dangerous to set up a site-blocking mechanism that could potentially criminalise such a wide variety of platforms and sites.

"We fought an internet filter to a standstill years ago and it's distressing to see it returning in this form."

He said piracy would collapse if Australians were given safe, convenient and cheap access to content.

"This bill is using a hammer to crack a nut. If you give people a convenient way of accessing content very, very few people will be bothered to pirate stuff,' he said.

The view that the bill could be used for censorship is also shared by some in Australia's legal community.

Australian National University Associate Professor Matthew Rimmer said governments and corporations may attempt to use this bill to target whistleblower sites like WikiLeaks and The Intercept.

"I think the bill has obvious and profound defects and it's very concerning that that was not subject to close scrutiny by the Senate committee report," he told ABC News.

Dr Rimmer is concerned there has been insufficient public discussion about the bill's ramifications.

"There's been a very rushed debate thus far in terms of what should happen in relation to that bill," he said.

"It's very striking that this week the Australian Parliament has been celebrating the Magna Carta and at the same time has been pushing for this copyright censorship bill."

Dr Rimmer also argued that the major political parties are under extraordinary pressure by entertainment companies to block piracy websites.

"Roadshow famously lost a big High Court case against iiNet over authorising copyright infringement," he said.

"In response, Roadshow has made significant, major contributions to both the Coalition and the Australian Labor Party."

'We were in the top 10 on Pirate Bay out of all films in the world'

But it is not just the big players who are supporting the Government's proposed bill.

Australian filmmaker Tristan Roache-Turner and his brother Kiah were responsible for one of Australia's great unexpected success stories of recent years.

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Australian film maker explains how piracy affects him (ABC News)

Together they spent over four years making the 2014 film Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead, a zombie film set in the Australian bush.

However, despite widespread critical acclaim and global audiences, they did not earn enough money to pay back their modest production costs.

"We got pirated very heavily," Tristan Roache-Turner said.

"We were in the top 10 on Pirate Bay out of all films in the world for about two weeks.

"For an upcoming bunch of filmmakers it's very good exposure. But it also means that you get absolutely hammered when it comes to recouping some of the costs that have gone into the film."

Roache-Turner welcomes the Government's proposal to introduce website-blocking measures.

"I think it's a step in the right direction. I think it's really, really good," he said.

"Obviously a lot of these websites are running outside of Australia and to get some sort of way to put up some sort of jurisdiction around that and to stop piracy I think is a very good thing."

Australians 'saw Game of Thrones before Californians saw it'

Roache-Turner argues film companies should experiment further with making cinema content available in different countries at the same time.

"I can really see where consumers would get frustrated not being able to see a product that's available in other areas of the world," he said.

"I think we should be looking at some sort of global release strategy, especially for Australians seeing Australian content.

"I don't think they should have to wait for other countries to see it first."

The Australian entertainment sector is now under more pressure than ever to provide market-led incentives that encourage people to pay for content legitimately.

Foxtel is one of the major corporate backers of the Government's reform and its corporate affairs director Bruce Meagher said the sector has made great strides towards meeting consumers' demands over recent years.

"Game of Thrones this year went to air concurrently with the east coast of America," he said.

"Australians saw it before people in California saw it. And we do that with most of those big US shows now.

"We release them, if not exactly at the same time, then within a couple of hours."

He admits that further reducing the theatrical window from when a film is shown in cinemas to its DVD release presents some big financial challenges for film studios.

"The issue at the end of the day is trying to get a return on the investment and particularly when you're making big, big expensive films," Mr Meagher said.

"But distributors and creators want to have the theatrical window for as long as they can to get as many people into the cinema [as possible].

"But it is already reducing and I think it will continue to reduce significantly."

A spokesperson from Village Roadshow said it "recognises that consumers want cheap, timely and easily available product, and we are working hard to deliver that".

Topics: internet-culture, information-and-communication, federal-government, copyright, australia

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