A student fined hundreds of dollars for pirating Comedy Central's The Daily Show over the University of NSW's Wi-Fi network says it hasn't deterred him from downloading movies and TV shows illicitly.
Now a 27-year-old graduate, KT spoke to Fairfax Media on the condition his full name not be used, after it was revealed students at the university could be fined up to $1000 and banned from the network for pirating.
"At the time I was angry – being a student a $480 fine was something I didn't need," he said. "But in truth torrents are illegal. UNSW UniWide [Wi-Fi] isn't meant for torrenting. So as much as I didn't like it, the university were well within their rights to fine me and any other students."
KT is one of several UNSW students and graduates issued with fines over the past six years for using the university's network in a way that breaches its acceptable use policy. Others have been disconnected or banned from the network for short periods.
KT spoke to Fairfax after identifying himself on the Sydney Morning Herald's Facebook page, but now no longer wants to be identified by his full name.
He said he eventually paid the fine but said he still downloaded movies illicitly.
He said he was penalised by UNSW after he forgot to close a program used to distribute TV shows and movies when he left home, only to have it automatically reconnect when on campus.
KT's fine arrived in his university email inbox in the second semester of 2011, less than an hour after he connected to the Wi-Fi network. The university also sent him an infringement notice received from Viacom, the rights holder behind The Daily Show.
It's understood that until recently UNSW received up to 80 infringement notices a day. It drastically reduced their number by blocking peer-to-peer file-sharing technology in almost all faculties but Medicine, which argued it needs it for legitimate research purposes.
Although The Daily Show is accessible via subscription TV and iTunes in Australia for a fee, KT said he still won't pay for it.
"The only thing that would ever stop me is if my home ISP – Optus or Telstra or whoever – fined me sufficiently," KT said. Downloading illicitly was "a hell of a lot easier".
"The torrent uploaders are pretty quick," he said.
KT said he would never pay for content, arguing that Australia's "distance" from the US didn't make him feel guilty about infringing on the copyright of overseas rights holders.
Noting the Netflix Australia announcement on Wednesday, he said he also wouldn't pay for that service.
"Maybe it's a generational thing?"
He said he illicitly downloaded The Daily Show because the site streaming it is geoblocked in Australia, meaning Australian internet protocol (IP) addresses cannot access it.
Digital rights group Electronic Frontiers Australia, anti-piracy investigator Michael Speck and the chief regulatory officer at internet service provider iiNet, Steve Dalby, questioned whether UNSW's fines were appropriate given that they go towards "student amenities" rather than rights holders.
Music Rights Australia said it would seek clarification from UNSW on the process.
"Music Rights Australia is pleased to see that UNSW is taking rights protection seriously, and seeking to pro-actively educate and warn its system users that it is unacceptable to access or distribute unauthorised content," said Music Rights Australia general manager Vanessa Hutley.
"However, the process, as reported in [Fairfax Media's Tuesday] article, does not appear to take the copyright owners' rights into consideration and MRA will seek clarification from UNSW on its processes."
Co-chief executive of Village Roadshow Graham Burke praised UNSW's policy, saying it was likely to teach students not to breach copyright.
Downloading copyright infringing material is not a crime in Australia and won't put you in prison but you can be sued thousands of dollars by rights holders.
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