[LINK] Letter to the ACCC - was - consultation re piracy

[Tom Koltai]

Regional Director,
ACCC
Via Facsimile:  (02) 6243-1199

Dear Sir,

I am writing in relation to a concern that I have developed for the
apparent cartel activities of organisations that have effectively
prevented Australians from being able to receive a Video on Demand
product independent of Telstra.

Telstra have been delivering Video on Demand since 1996 (before illegal
File sharing on P2P networks commenced).

Their actions in ensuring that Hollywood do not deal with any other
ISP's in a meaningful, competitive manner mean that Australians Internet
users who wish to use their computers for downloading and viewing
content have no option but to download the content illegally if they
want the content.

Whilst I have no direct evidence of a cartel, I consider the anecdotal
evidence surrounding the control of content issue (as examined by the
ACCC in 2003) all points to a select few "boys club" to which other
ISP's are prevented from joining,

I recently blogged about this and it was the activity of blogging that
caused me to want to take this matter further.
(http://www.perceptric.com/blog/_archives/2009/6/18/4225537.html)

Smith, the father of modern economist theory suggested that 85% of the
population are inherently honest and would prefer to pay for their
acquisitions.
In today's internet facilitated multi-media society that opportunity has
not been able to be delivered by the majority of ISP's in Australia.

The resulting effects are:

	1.	Users are left with no legal means to obtain content.
	2.	Users that obtain content in this illegal manner are
then guilty of breaching the Copyright Act 1969 as amended
8/November/2008.
	3.	Smaller ISP's are loosing clients as a result of the
take-down notices
	4.	The Copyright owners have elected to sue the ISP's
rather than offer them the content on commercially viable terms
	5.	Restrictive Trade Legislation (ACTA) is now being
proposed as a result of File Sharing that would not be in Australia's
best economic interests.
 
Australia is being left behind technologically because of the
artificial, legislative and legal barriers being erected by the content
organisations that refuse to engage with the ISP's in any other manner
than litigious interaction.

Whilst I realise that the foregoing is little on which to base a Cartel
claim investigation, I am convinced that if such an investigation were
to be made public and responses were requested from ISP's, then they
would overwhelmingly support my claims.

Yours faithfully,


Thomas P. Koltai



_______________________________________
No viruses found in this outgoing message
Scanned by iolo AntiVirus 1.5.6.4
http://www.iolo.com