Fran Foo | November 26, 2008
A SYDNEY internet cafe operator has pleaded guilty to 40 charges of copyright infringement involving titles such as Russell Crowe's American Gangster.
Interville Technology was fined $82,000 and ordered to pay court costs at the Downing Centre Local Court yesterday.
The company's computers and servers seized during a raid by the Australian Federal Police will be forfeited.
On December 18, 2007, the AFP raided Interville's cybercafe located at Sydney's World Square shopping centre following an investigation by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) and the Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI).
According to AFACT and MIPI, the cafe had 60 computers and three servers that contained hundreds of thousands of infringing movie, TV and music titles.
The cafe was charging its patrons hourly fees to illegally access movies and music, that were then saved on storage devices with up to 60GB of space.
Both organisations say the capacity would be able to hold 40 movies and hundreds of music files.
During the raid, Interville was found to have infringed on the copyright of then yet-to-be-released movies, including American Gangster and National Treasure Book of Secrets, plus songs from over 150 popular artists like 50 Cent, Alicia Keys and Justin Timberlake.
"It is satisfying to see sentences handed down which properly reflect the damage operations like this does to the rights of owners and the 50,000 Australians working in the film and TV industries," AFACT operations director Neil Gane said.
Mr Gane said the outcome would send a clear message to internet cafe owners engaged in commercial scale copyright breach. "You will be caught and you risk severe penalties."
Last week AFACT moved to sue internet service provider iiNet for allegedly authorising copyright infringement activities on its network.
It has also warned individual users not to illegally share or download movies and songs.