John Linton
....it's always something else.....
We received a letter, hand delivered to our North Sydney office, from an organisation I'd never heard of yesterday - AFACT. I don't think I've read a more insultingly phrased piece of 'business correspondence' in my business life and its insultingly phrased statements were only matched by the level of ignorance and error. I looked up this organisation here:
http://www.afact.org.au/index.html
and wasn't much wiser other than to wonder why any serious business is located in Mona Vale.
Why such an organisation should be writing so insultingly to a small company like Exetel is beyond my ability to understand - perhaps North Sydney is the closest ISP to Mona Vale (a Northern Beach residential suburb only known for it pub, a dangerous right hand break when there's a Southerly and as the back way turn off to Royal Prince Alfred yacht club on Pittwater).
According to the letter, Exetel is a criminal organisation that master minds and colludes in the criminal activities of its associates in the rape and pillage of the 50,000 individuals and organisations that AFACT represents.
The letter was responded to within an hour or so in the appropriate manner but it really concerned me that anyone can think they have the 'right' to gratuitously insult someone and defame them so casually. What has the, business, world come to? Who on Earth thinks they can address a person they have never met, nor had any contact with in any way previously, is such an arrogant and defamatory way? If you walked up to a total stranger on the street and made the insulting equivalent of the statements in the letter you could expect to end up flat on your back with a broken nose less than a second after you finished speaking.
Unfortunately there is no business equivalent to that totally merited response.
Exetel is very experienced in dealing with the 'usual suspects' who send copyright infringement notices to us and, long ago, we put in place the processes to legally and ethically deal with them. The processes we have in place are well documented on our web site and while they have undoubtedly lost us some business over the years, they are both effective in ensuring that Exetel complies with all laws relating to copyright that we are aware of and meet the requirements of any genuine copyright holder. In fact I would go further and say they are probably more effective and more ethical than any ISP in Australia has in place including the very large ISPS,Telstra and Optus, who carry over 75% of the internet traffic in Australia (Exetel wouldn't carry more than 1.2%).
As far as a quick check could determine, Exetel has never received any copyright infringement notice from AFACT or, apart from their defamatory and insulting letter yesterday, any other correspondence or contact. Doubtless that will change in the future but if it does we will not be dealing with it - we will let our legal advisers look after our interests in regards to ensuring we obey whatever laws relate to our business operations. (yet another waste of money dealing with issues of no relevance to our business operations).
Personally, I regard stealing other people's property the same way I regard people who steal anything - they're thieves and should be dealt with as thieves by the proper authorities.
Last time I looked I don't wear a blue uniform or carry a gun and the protection of property is not something I'm competent to be involved in.
However - looking at this report:
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4165519.ece
it seems that one major OECD country's government is now enacting laws to reduce copyright theft. Given the Labor party's ongoing rhetoric about "making the Internet safe" it is more than likely that this issue will be raised in Australia's parliaments and the days of the P2P copyright thieves may be coming to an end in a country near you in the not too distant future.