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Over in Australia, that giant group of "movie industry" companies failed to convince the judge of the merit in their case against an ISP for "allowing copyright infringement".    

The Sydney Morning Herald Blogs: Gadgets on the Go

Movie studios suing Australian internet provider iiNet have dropped some charges, no longer claiming the ISP directly infringed copyright laws by refusing to disconnect customers downloading pirate movies.

The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft, representing various copyright holders, had accused iiNet of committing "conversion" - directly infringing copyright by interfering with the copyright holders' "rights of possession". The charge was dropped after AFACT lawyers failed to convince Federal Court judge, Justice Dennis Cowdroy, of its merit. The judge has ordered the studios pay iiNet's court costs relating to that claim. 

Whenever this ISP recieved an accusation of copyright infringment, they would pass the matter onwards to the Australian police. The ISP did not wish to become the unpaid copyright police for large movie studios, nor were they qualified for such a job.

The remaining charges revolve around whether iiNet is liable for the actions of its users and their alleged copyright infringement.

Photo by Thomas Becker, Creative commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0