The content industry has had a major loss down under as its lawyers failed to convince a judge that an ISP was a pirate for allowing P2P content.

The Federal Court of Australia has dismissed the film industry's case against iiNet, finding that Australia's No.3 internet provider did not authorise copyright infringement on its network. It has also been told to pay iiNet's costs which are believed to be $4 million.

It was a move that the content industry probably would not have tried in an country other than Australia which is currently sacrificing freedoms. However in a 200 page judgment, Justice Cowdroy found while iiNet users had infringed copyright by downloading films on BitTorrent he could not see iiNet as approving it. He also said that the number of infringers was far less than alleged by the content industry.

He added that the "mere provision of access to internet is not the means to infringement" "iiNet has no control over BitTorrent system and not responsible for BitTorrent system." He decided that iiNet was "entitled to safe harbour" provisions because it had a policy on infringement, even if its policy didn't do what the content industry wanted.

The Aussie version of the RIAA, AFACT said it was very disappointed with the ruling. It would decide in a few days if it will appeal.