The Australian Screen Association (ASA) (formerly known as Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft) is an

anti-piracy Anti-piracy may refer to: * Anti-piracy, protection against copying of computer software. * Piracy#Anti-piracy measures anti-piracy measures, measures to counter maritime pirates. See also * Pirate (disambiguation) A pirate is a person who com ...

lobby group that was established in 2004. Its aim is to protect the film and television industry and retailers from what it claims are adverse impacts of

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, s ...

in Australia. The Australian Screen Association is affiliated with the United Kingdom organisation,

Federation Against Copyright Theft The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) is an organisation established in 1983 to protect and represent the interests of its members' intellectual property (IP). FACT also investigates fraud and cybercrime, and provides global due diligenc ...

and the United States organisation

MPAA The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States, as well as the video streaming service Netflix. Founded in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distribu ...

. ASA actively works to reduce

camcorder A camcorder is a self-contained portable electronic device with video and recording as its primary function. It is typically equipped with an articulating screen mounted on the left side, a belt to facilitate holding on the right side, hot-swa ...

recording of films screened in cinemas. It is also dedicated to educating people about its own view of copyright infringement. In mid-2011, the

Pirate Party Australia Pirate Party Australia is a political party in Australia that had traditionally represented civil liberty issues, but had also expanded into more traditional areas of policy. It was a Pirate Party which was based on the Pirate Party of Sweden, ...

accused AFACT of intimidating ISPs after they threatened unspecified actions if they didn't engage with the organisation in talks on

file-sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include ...

. A classified

WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is an international non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its founder and director and ...

cable revealed that AFACT was acting as the

's Australian subcontractor and that the MPAA wanted to avoid the view that the court case was about Hollywood trying to bully an Australian ISP.

Members

The organisation comprises

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Inc., doing business as Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, is the home entertainment distribution arm of The Walt Disney Company. The division handles the distribution of Disney's films, television series, an ...

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...

, Paramount Pictures,

Roadshow Entertainment Roadshow Entertainment (formerly known as Roadshow Home Video from 1982–1993) is an Australian home video, production and distribution company that is a division of Village Roadshow (formerly Roadshow Home Video and Roadshow Entertainment) t ...

, Sony Pictures,

Universal Pictures Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...

Warner Brothers Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

and the

Court case

The organisation brought a lawsuit to the Federal Court of Australia against Australian internet service provider,

iiNet iiNet Limited is an Australian internet service provider that sells NBN plans and services on its ULTRA Broadband Cable, FTTB and VDSL2 networks. It was acquired by TPG Telecom in July 2020. iiNet was acquired by TPG in September 2015 for $ ...

, on 20 November 2008, alleging that iiNet had authorised copyright infringement on its network. AFACT had used Dtecnet, a company that tracks online copyright infringement to discover users sharing copyrighted content through BitTorrent. The Federal Court decision cleared iiNet on 4 February 2010. Justice Cowdroy found that "mere provision of access to internet is not the means to infringement". AFACT lost its appeal to the Federal Court on 24 February 2011. It was ordered to pay iiNet's legal bills. AFACT lost a further appeal to the High Court of Australia on 20 April 2012.

References

External links

*{{Official website, http://www.screenassociation.com.au/ Internet in Australia Television in Australia Organizations established in 2004 2004 establishments in Australia Copyright enforcement companies Information technology organizations based in Oceania