An Australian cyber cafe charged with 40 counts of copyright infringement has pleaded guilty in court.
The cafe, which is situated in Sydney, is owned by Interville Technology, and was raided last December by Federal Police after a joint copyright investigation by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) and Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI).
The investigation revealed that the cafe in question, which housed 60 computer terminals, was openly allowing its customers to watch pirated versions of several Hollywood films on a pay-per-view basis.
In addition to this, the cafe was accused of actively encouraging its customers to go on to infringe copyright laws by selling them large-capacity storage devices for the purpose of downloading illegal copies of movies, television shows and songs on the premises.
When accused of seriously abusing copyright laws in court, Interville admitted its guilt, and was fined AUD82,000 (USD53,000).
The ruling is a breakthrough for the copyright industry, as the MIPI’s general manager, Sabiene Heindl, explained:
“For the first time, an Internet cafe has been targeted and justly reprimanded for its blatant facilitation of widespread copyright infringement for commercial gain.”
In addition to this, Neil Gane, the AFACT Director of Operations announced:
"It is satisfying to see sentences handed down which properly reflect the damage operations like this do to rights owners and the 50,000 Australians working in the film and TV industries. The sentences will send a clear message to all Internet cafe owners engaged in commercial scale copyright infringement – you will be caught and you risk severe penalties."
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