Petroc Wilton: Its Petroc here form Communications Day, hi Malcolm.

I guess
when weve seen both sides of this debate be so vehemently opposed on some
key points do you have confidence that there will be a consensus of sorts
reached with this code before April?
Malcolm Turnbull: Yes, look, I am confident Petroc. Um, I think theres, uh, in
the course of the last six months or so, um, the discussions that Ive had and
that George has had and that weve had together with the various [inaudible
stakeholders?] are fairly confident, reasonably confident, that they will come to a
landing. I think theyre fairly close. So, yeah, but you know, as weve made clear,
and youve seen the letter that weve sent to the, uh, various parties, that if they
cant reach agreement then we will, uh, the government will impose a code
under the Copyright Act or the telecoms act. Weve got several means of doing
that.
Petroc Wilton: Yeah, yeah, OK, thank you.
Josh Taylor: Josh Taylor from ZDNet. Just on the, on the costs aspect of it, that is
one sticking point that I know the rights holders and ISPs disagree on. When you
talk about sharing the costs what do you actually mean? Is that going to be
mostly borne by the rights holders? Is it going to be mostly borne by the ISPs?
Hows that actually going to work out?
Malcolm Turnbull: Well Josh thats something theyve got to resolve
themselves. But, look, I think that their, the reality is that the people or the
parties whose valuable property is being appropriated without payment are of
course the rights owners. So they have got, theyre the ones with the most to
gain financially from a reduction in piracy. So I think its, uh, I think its
reasonable to expect that the bulk of the costs will be borne by the rights
owners. And thats certainly I think the expectation in the industry.
Josh Taylor: And I guess on the other part of the ledger you mention in the
letter that content owners have made their content more available recently. Is
there anything in the notices that the customers will get if the content isnt
actually available in Australia; that theyll have a way to sort of get out of being
penalised for downloading the infringing content?
Malcolm Turnbull: Well theyre not being penalised by the notice. I mean the
notices are really educative. The idea is that the way the scheme would operate
and probably if you look globally the closest [inaudible comparison?] is New
Zealand I think it would be fair to say, is what we have in mind. One where the
notices go out I mean most, the general experience seems to be that most
people when they get a notice actually stop downloading content, um, that they
havent paid for. Uh, so there is a very important educational role here. Uh, and
then if after a number of notices and you know thats something the industry
should agree on, but one would expect after three or four notices the rights
owners have the ability to get the details of the account holder thats involved
and then they can take an action for damages, a civil action for damages in the
usual way.

Ben Grubb: Uh Ben Grubb here from the Sydney Morning Herald. Uh, before the
last...
Malcolm Turnbull: If I can just add to that answer Ben, the critical point here is
that what we are not suggesting is that ISPs should be required to cut off
peoples access or, you know, slow the speed of their connection or anything like
that.
Ben Grubb: Is it OK if I go?
Malcolm Turnbull: Yes, fire away, fire away.
Ben Grubb: Before the last election there was an internet filter proposed and
you successfully managed to change that policy. Today were seeing a new
internet filter introduced by ways of legislation....[cut off]
Malcolm Turnbull: Thats nonsense Ben. Theres no internet filter here at all.
What on earth are you talking about?
Ben Grubb: But arent you requiring the ISPs to block websites?
Malcolm Turnbull: No. What were, look, what we are simply doing is proposing
to amend the ... were going to amend the Copyright Act to make it more
straightforward for rights owners to do what they can do now, which is to seek an
order that access be prevented [to] a site that is ... infringing content. Now the
reason for the legislative provision ... is to make it available, is to enable you to
get a remedy against an ISP - in other words to get an order against an ISP
whose costs would have to be covered and so forth - to block access to an
overseas illegal down[load]..., uh, pirate site. Ill just use the word pirate because
its easy; we understand what were talking about. So if you have, you know,
bengrubbdownloads.com.au in Australia and you are happily streaming, you
know, unlicensed copies of movies, then this amendment would have no
relevance to you because the rights owners can go after you directly.
Ben Grubb: Right, so you are saying it isnt an internet filter because they can
do this already?
Malcolm Turnbull: Can I just say this to you? Dont, I mean, I know the
temptation to sort of engage in journalism by click bait is very strong but this is
not, repeat, not an internet filter. This is basically, were talking about a situation
where you have, you know, bengrubb.com.ru, based in Russia or, um, wherever,
which is happily taking money and, you know, one way or another, either
through adverting or directly from customers, to stream pirated content.
Obviously the rights owners cant get a remedy against the website which is in
another jurisdiction and so what theyre able to do is go to a court, and subject to
all the usual safeguards, is get an order that the ISP should block access to that
site as ISPs do now for other sites, there are other sites [for which we] block
access to relating to, you know, child abuse sites and sites that are promoting
terrorism. You know this is not without precedent. But this is not; this is

absolutely not a filter. And I mean thatll get you a lot of clicks. But that is
complete BS. Its not a filter. This is...[inaudible]
Matthew Knott: Malcolm, Matt Knott from Fairfax, just about, so if it comes to
April and it hasnt been agreed have you go?
Malcolm Turnbull: Hang on, hang on. Just say that again slowly.
Matthew Knott: So if we get to April and the code hasnt been agreed upon
have you worked out the system that would be in place then. Have you worked
out the code that you would implement by force if they cant work it out
themselves?
Malcolm Turnbull: By force of law you mean? Yeah, uh, we, um, I think weve
got a pretty good understanding of that but no doubt it will evolve. No doubt
there are some practical matters of detail that will emerge over the next few
months. I think broadly speaking we are basically, I think there is a general
agreement that a system of notices is a good one, recognising most people once
that get a notice will stop doing the wrong thing.
Matthew Knott: And have you got feedback from the rights holders? Are they
happy? Do they think this goes far enough to make a difference for their
businesses?
Malcolm Turnbull: Uh, well, I think its very important to recognise that this is a
very dynamic area and there is ... this will ... were playing a percentage game
here, right? Youre never going to eliminate all piracy. What we believe this will
do is materially reduce it and I think thats important. I think most people
recognise they shouldnt, you know, steal other peoples intellectual property and
they recognise that actors and artists and writers and directors and so forth all
need to live and theyre entitled to paid just like everyone else. So I think they
accept that but I think its important ... theyve developed a sort of a practise of
downloading content without payment. I think the notices will have a salutary
educative effect and we will monitor it. Now one thing I should say to you [is]
that I have arranged for my department of communications to liaise with their
counterpart in New Zealand and the UK to jointly on an ongoing basis examine
the effectiveness of measures taken both in our jurisdictions and elsewhere to
prevent internet piracy. I mean I recognise and you wouldve seen from that
forum we had earlier in the year that there is some controversy as to what
actually works. And so thats why its going to be important...
Daniel Hurst: Minister on that, sorry, Daniel Hurst here...
Malcolm Turnbull: And if I can just make one other point. Bear in mind the
notices are only relevant to file-sharing. OK? File-sharing as best we can
understand, as a form of unlawful downloading, or unlawful sharing, is actually
diminishing as a percentage. And increasingly pirated content, being obtained
through pirate sites, in other words its being directly downloaded or streamed
from those sites, and thats where of course the provision, the amendment to the

Copyright Act that were talking about is, you know, has the potential to mitigate
that too.
Daniel Hurst: Minister, Daniel Hurst here from the Guardian. Can I just ask, you
did say that youre not going to eliminate all copyright infringement obviously.
What effects do you expect from this? Do you expect that there will be a greater
uptake in people being able to use VPNs and going around the system? What do
you expect the effect to be on consumer behaviour?
Malcolm Turnbull: Look, you know, not, the, you, that may be the case. If you,
you could reasonable say that would be the case Daniel. Having said that, most
people dont use VPNs for this purpose. I think that, but I dont, I mean obviously
Im not, Im reasonably familiar with all of these technologies and they clearly,
clearly the, you know, the mechanisms for identifying your IP address in a torrent
swarm is frustrated if you use a VPN. So we understand that. Having said that,
we are playing a percentage game. I think that at the same time, and this is a
really important part of the exercise, the content owners, the rights owners, are
making more content available on a piecemeal basis so you dont have to buy a
subscription to a pay TV platform for $100 a month for a year or something in
order to get [it]. You can buy stuff on a piecemeal basis and also of course youre
starting to see new entrants like Netflix just as youve seen in the music business
with Spotify. I mean theres no doubt that Spotify has had a material impact on
reducing piracy. That seems to be pretty clear. Thats certainly what Spotify
asserts and I dont have any reason to doubt them. And I would refer you to a
very good discussion of Spotify which is in the New Yorker about 3, I cant
remember who wrote it, but its quite a good piece about the origins of Spotify
and you know its impact. It basically got started as you know in Sweden and the
piracy was just enormous. The music industry was on its knees. And they got, so
the rights owners said sure, whatever, this has got to be better than what were
getting at the moment, better than nothing, And it did have a very big impact.
So I think as people become used to paying.... Most people accept that it is
reasonable to pay. Obviously their incentive to steal stuff has obviously
increased. That incentive has increased by A) The cost of buying content
legitimately and B) And I think this is just as big an issue, convenience or lack of
convenience of buying stuff legitimately. So I think the key focus for the content
owners I think is to make their content both conveniently able to be bought in a
timely fashion and of course to have a price point that people regard as fair.
Claire Reilly: Minister, Claire Reilly here from CNET. I just have a question about
the validity of IP addresses that are found by rights holders. Thats a key point
that the current iiNet-Dallas Buyers Club case is hinging on. Will ISPs [check] the
accuracy of particular rights holders coming with correct IP addresses that they
believe are infringing? Does this not rely on that accuracy that the ISP is then to
block?
Malcolm Turnbull: I think, I understand that argument and of course with
network address translation techniques, you know - Im just getting up to get air
conditioning. OK. Sorry, Im back again. With network address translation, or

NATting techniques, those problems are, theyre not trivial. I acknowledge that.
Having said that, the way this scheme would work is you would get, lets say an
IP address that... say an IP address is identified as having shared a file thats an
infringing file. Um, the ISP resolves that to you and sends you a notice. Now
thats just an educative notice. You would be perfectly free to go back and say
well that wasnt me, youve screwed up, check your records. Lets say you get
three or four of these notices. If the rights owner then decided to sue you, hes
got to prove it. Hes got to prove his case. Theres no automatic... I know the
rights owners have argued in some cases that there should be automatic slowing
of speeds or, you know... [inaudible disconnection?]. None of that. So basically
their remedy would be a normal civil claim, you know, for breach of copyright.
Claire Reilly: OK and just secondly to that you mentioned that we are playing a
percentage game here. The issue of blocking websites has often been referred to
whack a mole. Weve seen today that the Pirate Bay was raided but already
theyve popped up elsewhere. If site blocking of websites is brought in how can
we guarantee that that is not going to result in multiple sites being blocked as
we saw with ASIC and their request to block a number of sites for issues around
financial fraud?
Malcolm Turnbull: Well that was a different. What were talking about is a
blocking order being made by a court. And the rights owner would have to
establish that this site was being used to stream unlawful content. That was not
just an incidental feature. And, but, but, but if you are asking me Is it possible
to, you know, for say a Pirate Bay to move to another IP address or another, you
know, URL for that matter of course that is true. And thats why I guess I say this
is a percentage game. So it isnt that its... theres no silver bullet here. Theres a
whole range of solutions, of tools, of both on the sides of the ISPs and on the side
of the rights owners that I think will materially mitigate copyright infringement.
Josh Taylor: Josh Taylor again. I just wanted to know.
Malcolm Turnbull: Can you speak up please? Its really hard to hear.
Josh Taylor: Sorry, its Josh Taylor again. Just in regards to following up on
Claires question. One of the things thats come up in the Dallas Buyers Club
case is that iiNet is actually challenging the actual system that theyre using to
determine the IP addresses and also theres a whole other factor in regards to I
guess its the people accessing on Wi-Fi, people who arent actually the account
holders who might be infringing on that network getting caught up in that. Do
you know how do you set up a system that can weed that out?
Malcolm Turnbull: Well if you are using a Wi-Fi, this is why I am saying it is a
percentage game. If you go into a library or go into a, you know, go into the
federal parliament and you use the free Wi-Fi there and then use that to
download infringing material, I suspect that theyve got some rules on that
system that make it difficult for you to download multiple gigabytes, but lets say
you were able to do that. Your public IP address would be the parliament house IP
address. So again the, and it would not be possible for the ISP [to identify the

infringer], and that would be a static IP address I imagine, but in many cases I
guess it will be hard to get back behind the public IP address thats been
allocated to the wireless router that youre connected to that is in turn connected
to the internet.
Josh Taylor: Have you also done a cost-benefit analysis on this or a regulatory
impact or anything like that?
Malcolm Turnbull: Uh yeah theres certainly, absolutely yes. Theres a
regulatory impact statement with this, yes.
Petroc Wilson: Minister its Petroc again. I wanted to clarify a point of
legislating. I hope it isnt too obvious a question. Your original proposal spoke
about extending authorisation liability, actually changing legislation in particular
and broadening the definition of reasonable steps. Now no change is mentioned
in the letter to rights holders and ISPs.
Malcolm Turnbull: Were not making any change to the definition, to the scope
of authorisation. If you look at say section 101 and you reflect on the iiNet
decision, if you have a code in place and under the existing laws there was an
existing code in place which there wasnt at the time of the iiNet case that
decision wouldve been different, assuming iiNet had not complied with the code.
So George and I dont think there is a need to change the definition of
authorisation liability. But, you know, we are, we recognise, youve got to
recognise, and I certainly recognise that this is a very dynamic area. Use of
technologies is changing rapidly, so this is the best set of measures we can
devise for this case and we will obviously monitor its success very carefully. And
as I said earlier, were going to talk to governments in comparable jurisdictions
and make sure that we all have a good understanding. I mean, look. What is our
objective? Our objective is to obviously to stop people breaching copyright. I
mean nobody is seriously going to say it is a good thing or a worthy thing for
people to be able to essentially be able to steal music and video content online
or anywhere else, any more than it is a good thing to walk into a shop and put a
DVD in your pocket without paying for it. So we understand that. But what weve
got to make sure is that the measures we employ are the most efficient, impose
the least cost on the industry and consumers and are obviously carefully
monitored to make sure that they are effective. There is a, and of course
technologies change. As I said earlier, theres a lot of evidence to suggest that
file-sharing as a form of, you know, internet piracy if thats the right term has
diminished. Now if you talk to the people at Netflix they will tell you and
Spotify they will say that [this is] because companies like Netflix and Spotify
are making so much content available for streaming at affordable prices that
people no longer feel that its not worth, theyd rather pay for it and get a better
quality product and not run the risks of breaching the law.
Stephen Scott: Malcolm, Stephen Scott here, what confidence will consumers
have that this will...
Malcolm Turnbull: Sorry can you just speak up sorry.

Stephen Scott: Sorry, can you hear me?

Malcolm Turnbull: Yep.
Stephen Scott: Stephen Scott. What confidence should consumers have that
this will lead to lower prices or material being available sooner in Australia than it
has been.
Malcolm Turnbull: Well I think, I think, look, at a legal, speaking from a strictly
legal point of view, rights owners can determine when they release their material
and what they charge for it. Just like if, you know, if you sell motorcars you can
determine what price you charge for them. Thats a matter for you. Having said
that, its very clear that the, that one of the most effective counter measures
against piracy is to make content available conveniently and affordably. And I
think youre starting to see all these changes. Weve talked about Spotify, weve
talked about Netflix, youve got Foxtel Presto, youve got Stan, um, not to speak
of obviously the [existing] players like iTunes. So I think there is a lot of activity
there. I mean if you talk to people in the industry who sort of reflect on this, a lot
of people say that the big mistake that was made was that when Napster was
finally put out of business they didnt either in effect legitimise Napster and
make it a legal, you know,[service]... or quickly replace it with one because,
there was a , Napster got people into the habit of streaming and file sharing
became de rigueur, but there was a bit gap between all of that becoming very
widespread and prevalent and providing lots of legitimate avenues for
purchasing content online. Now you guys would be better historians of
technology than me but I think theres some course in that. But anyway, this is a
set of reasonable measures, theyre very moderate, theyre not, theyre certainly
not, you know, I think they will have a material effect but time will tell.
Matthew Knott: Malcolm, Matt Knott again, is there any chance that for the
ISPs that the cost of compliance for this will lead to higher internet bills at all or
is that not possible?
Malcolm Turnbull: I mean it depends on two things a) what the cost is and b)
how much of it the ISPs have to share, have to pay for. So obviously there is a,
weve all got a vested interest in the costs being low, as low as possible. And
from the ISPs point of view they take the view, and I think that thats a
reasonable position to take, that, you know, the largest share of the cost should
be borne by the rights owners. Because after all its their property, its their
valuable property thats being stolen.
Daniel Hurst: But minister, on that point, on that point, Daniel Hurst from the
Guardian, you did say that the majority should be borne by the content owners
or the rights holders, but why should the ISPs have to pay anything whatsoever
for this process?
Malcolm Turnbull: Well I think the, you know the, it is, the ISPs are in a, you
know, theyre earning revenue from, uh, providing these services too, providing

that connectivity as well, um and I think thats a, that is a, that cant be ignored
either.
Greg Jennet: Malcolm, Greg Jennet from the ABC, just on that, if you had to
enforce a code beyond April of next year how would you address the
proportioning of costs between those two arms of the industry.
Malcolm Turnbull: Well thats a very interesting question but its a hypothetical
one and I am focussed on persuading the industry to get on with the job to come
to a resolution. I think that theyre pretty close. And I think they would be very
well advised to come up with an industry code themselves rather than having
something imposed on them by government.