Village Roadshow, the Australian media company behind Mad Max: Fury Road, is gearing up for a rumble, announcing its intention to take advantage of the Government's new anti-piracy laws and submit an application to the Federal Court.
The legislation, dubbed Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2015, allows rights holders to apply for an injunction against overseas websites, like The Pirate Bay, that facilitate copyright infringement in Australia.
Piracy websites that are successfully hit with an injunction will be replaced by a landing page notifying visitors that the site has been blocked by the court, though one has to imagine how effective this approach would be when sites like The Pirate Bay and Kickass Torrents change domains and hosting companies on what seems like a weekly basis.
Though the legislation was passed back in June, Village Roadshow will be the first rights holder to submit an application under the laws, which is a small step towards the promise co-founder Graham Burke made back in August, in which he said “we will sue people.”
While the fight against piracy in Australia is more heated than ever, a recent report by the IP Awareness Foundation has provided evidence to suggest that affordable and convenient legal solutions like Netflix and Stan are turning pirates into paying customers.
