John Linton The July month, always a difficult one, will finish up quite well for Exetel with all areas of our business above the quota's set for them - something that hasn't been the case for a while. It's always good to get the first month of any financial year away to an above target start because it doesn't happen that often - it seems optimism is always a part of setting the first months target for a 'clean sheet' year. We also finalised our customer referral offering for August which I think better uses the 'promotional dollars' that Optus has provided to us by passing all of them on to our current customers rather than using them for new customers. I feel better about giving other people's money to our 'friends' rather than to 'strangers'.
So just as I was contemplating a job well done I received another 'threatening email' from AFACT. Why they would bother with a company of Exetel's size (we have less than 1.5% of the residential ADSL market in Australia) I have no idea other than they want to pick off what they perceive to be the weakest ISPs first....an attitude/tactic I personally despise. Personally, I wish they had won their law suit against iinet but they managed to lose an 'unlosable' case via appalling legal advice and even more inept case handling than usually occurs when egotistic lawyers assume their grand intellects actually comprehend the minor complexities of technology - my personal experience is that while, at least in our case, our instructing solicitors may take the time to understand the points at hand, experience is that eminent SCs spend no time at all (let alone asking questions that may reveal their ignorance of the topics) and therefore almost never have a clue - as was amply demonstrated in the AFACT vs iinet law suit.
If they had won their 'unlosable' law suit rather than obtained the very poorly worded negative result with a more cogent dissenting opinion we would not have this lingering uncertainty. Now, we have to go through the whole thing again because so many people lied and were not held to account for their lies. I suppose Exetel will have to spend more money getting new advice from the best SC in terms of real understanding and knowledge of copyright law in Australia and whether the AFACT vs iinet law suit has changed his original advice that we have no obligations whatsoever. A PITA, but one more waste of money and distraction in our working lives. Exetel obeys the law in every thing we do - we always have.....not just because we are essentially honest and caring people but because in any sensible business you really don't have an option.
It is therefore really annoying to have organisations like AFACT attack your company, not for any legal or ethical reasons, but because they are the sort of people who, when they were five years old, were the play ground bullies and they never lost their lust for propping up their damaged egos by hurting the weak. Those infant psychopaths grew up to be despicable adults whose personal weaknesses are propped up by using other people's money to inflict pain on others. I can't be sure; but I think Exetel has gone further than most ISPs to comply with Australian law to the letter and to assist copyright holders as much as we are legally obliged to do to protect their property. Personally I intensely dislike thieves and recognise that the internet has allowed theft of intellectual property on an hitherto unknown scale. It needs legislation followed by enforcement - no even marginally honest person can disagree with that and better governments than we currently have in Australia have put in place measures to address this issue.......
....it just isn't something Exetel should be involved in.
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