So IINet won the case. In a way this is awesome, “common sense has prevailed” as the EFF has said.

The giants of the film industry have lost their case against ISP iiNet in a landmark judgment handed down in the Federal Court today.

The decision had the potential to impact internet users and the internet industry profoundly as it sets a legal precedent surrounding how much ISPs are required to do to prevent customers from downloading movies and other content illegally.

But does this mean organisations like AFACT are going to start suing individual people for millions of dollars like other companies are doing in the US?

I mean, after all that was IINet’s main defence, that they are just an internet provider and are not responsible for what individuals do.

Hmm.

Haven’t seen a crossover like this since Alien vs Predator!!

10 years ago today I registered the domain “darkgate.net” and started up this humble website.

Wow, that’s a long time… yet it seems like only yesterday I was racking my brain trying to come up with a domain name that sounded “cool” but wasn’t already taken. Then I stumbled upon “darkgate.net” and went “Bah, that’ll do”.

Wonder if it’ll still be here 10 years from now…

I keep reading this article over and over. It seems to be a fairly logical argument from a person who obviously doesn’t have any love for gaming (nor an irrational fear of it).

This particular paragraph really gets me, it’s something I hadn’t though of until this guy put it so plainly:

Indeed, it is curious that so many pro-status-quo arguments revolve around the impact on minors, as this implies scepticism of not just the proposal at hand, but the entire structure of the classification system. While the protection of children from disturbing and/or inappropriate content is indeed a valid consideration, the very purpose of classification and ratings categories is to serve this concern. The fact of a minor’s possession of a game that had been deemed inappropriate for his or her age range would not represent a failure in the guidelines; it would represent a failure in the application of the guidelines. A rejection of a classification category based on lack of confidence over the correct application of the criteria can only imply a rejection of classification schemes as a whole.

Surely, if people like Atkinson campaign against R18+ games because they don’t trust the system to stop these games from getting into the hands of minors, then their problem isn’t with the games… it’s with the classification system ITSELF.

They don’t trust the system, and if that is the case… we’re having the wrong argument.

On a side note, I noticed that Modern Warfare 2 has received an R18+ rating in every other country apart form Australia. Here, it got a MA15+ rating, but really/probably should have been banned in Australia because we don’t have an R rating.

But how can you tell the Australian retail games industry they won’t get the opportunity to sell the greatest selling game OF ALL TIME? All that revenue is going to go to overseas sites like amazon, dvd.co.uk and play-asia. You just can’t… so you give the game a MA15+ rating instead!

So now Mum is at the game store and little Johnny the teenager is begging her for Modern Warfare 2 since all his mates have it and it’s the most awesome game ever. She picks it up, reads “MA15+” on the label, and probably think’s it’s appropriate for little Johnny and pats herself on the back for being such a good parent.

Only in Australia.