Aussie government calls for piracy code of conduct

Australia's Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Stephen Conroy has called for ISPs and studios to sit down and agree a code of conduct for dealing with piracy in the country in the wake of iiNet successfully defending a court case brought against them by the big movie and TV studios last week.

Bemoaning the 'lack of dialogue' over the issues in the country compared to others that are in the process of passing laws to deal with piracy (such as the Digital Economy Bill here), Conroy said:

"I would hope to encourage the [internet service providers] and the movie industries to sit down and try and come up with a code of conduct and let's see where that goes before we start leaping off down that path [legislation changes].

I think that a mature approach by both the movie industry and the internet industry sitting down, having a conversation, and coming up with a code of practice is the absolute preferable outcome. The problem is at the moment in Australia there is no agreement, there is no discussion, there is no dialogue and people resorted to court."

Given how legislation happy Conroy and his government are (remember their great firewall plans?), no doubt they won't hesitate to introduce new laws if agreement cannot be reached.