It's been a good day to believe in freedom

Two important court cases were decided on today on each side of the planet. Both of them were important in their own right for the principles they dealt with.

First off, iiNet in Australia won against AFACT, the Australian copyright lobby in a case where it was decided that an ISP can not be held legally responsible for what it's users do with the bandwidth purchased. This was important since it established a principle that ISPs should not be given the task of being some sort of copyright police. An infringer is just as entitled to due process as anyone else. Of course this was an Australian case, but the principle was important, and the case has been followed by lawyers, governments and ISPs all across the globe.

In another case, this time in the UK, the criminal charges against operators of the BitTorrent forum FileSoup was thrown out of court. The judges ruled that the matter was not a criminal case, but a civil case. If copyright holders want compensation for their work being infringed on, they need to go against the infringers with civil lawsuits. The UK police force was also heavily criticized for relying on the private organization FACT for their investigation. A private organization should not be given authority to act as law enforcement.

The last case is a very important principle, as we are seeing time and time again that private organizations are acting on their own, almost as vigilantes in investigations and even raids against alleged copyright infringers. This is something that I personally see as a very poor development. Anyone, regardless of what they are accused of doing, is entitled to due process and a day in court. No private organization can overrule this.

Wow, a post with actual opinions and stuff. Think I'll just leave it at that for today.