Australian pirates to be sued in court, rights holders say

[Len]

Australian pirates have just been put on notice. The chairman for Creative Content Australia — a consortium of rights holders that counts Foxtel, Village Roadshow and the Australian Screen Association (ASA) among its members — has issued a stern warning to anyone who continues to access pirated content. In short, you can expect to be sued this year.

The announcement follows the government-imposed blacklisting of more than 60 piracy sites in Australia. If you're one of the many Australians who has been circumventing the blocks, it's time to start worrying.

Those who illictly downloaded Game of Thrones - which is aired first exclusively on Foxtel in Australia - could be targetted for lawsuits.

After successfully lobbying the government to force internet service providers (ISPs) to block so-called piracy websites and associated domain names, the rights holders are preparing to come after individual infringers. If you've been torrenting season 7 of Game Of Thrones instead of paying Foxtel, this means you.

"[The blocks] have what is effectively 95 per cent of the criminal trade blocked," said Creative Content Australia chairman Graham Burke, better known as the co-CEO of Village Roadshow.

Creative Content Australia's campaign fronted by Australian actor Bryan Brown.

But it appears the industry doesn't think these trade blocks go far enough. In an interview with News.com.au, Burke dropped the following bombshell (emphasis ours):

"We plan, later this year, to sue any individual that continues to download pirated content. If we find that someone is infringing our content, we'll send them a warning and we'll also be suing them for damages".

Burke went on to say that the damages being sought would be in the region of a "speeding fine". Depending on the type of speeding fine Burke was alluding to, this could be anywhere between $80 and $2000+ per infringement.

It's worth noting that this isn't the first time Burke has threatened to sue pirates in Australia. In a 2015 interview on SBS 2's The Feed, Burke said: "[Pirates] have been warned, notices issued that they have been doing the wrong thing. Yes we will sue people. [These people] have been doing the wrong thing, and they've been sent appropriate notices, and [they will be] dealt with accordingly."

We're mildly surprised to see Creative Content Australia issue threats in this manner. During the campaign's launch, it was billed as an educational initiative committed to "raising awareness about the value of screen content, role of copyright and impact of piracy."

On its website, the organisation lists Research, Consumer Campaigns and Education Resources as the three key areas it works in. Nowhere does it mention prosecuting pirates. Less than a fortnight into its existence, and it's already ditching the carrot for the stick.

Presumably, before any litigation can take place, Creative Content Australia will need to compel ISPs to hand over the IP addresses of suspected infringers. In others words, we could be about to see Dallas Buyers Club 2.0 play out in court.