news The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) has confirmed an AustralianIT report that Justice Dennis Cowdroy will hand down his ruling in the organisation’s high-profile copyright violation case against ISP iiNet next week on Thursday 4th February.

The ruling comes suprisingly early for the case, which only concluded in court late last year after several months of fiery submissions from both sides.

The battle has been raging in the courtroom and in print since late November 2008, when AFACT, representing movie and TV studios Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Disney Enterprises, Inc and the Seven Network, sued iiNet for letting its users allegedly download their copyrighted content (including films such as Batman: The Dark Knight) over the internet.

It is seen as a landmark case in Australia’s entertainment industry as content providers grapple with the ease of pirating their material via the internet.

An AFACT spokesperson confirmed the date of the ruling, while another AFACT spokesperson separately said the organisation was looking forward to the verdict but couldn’t comment further.

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2. iiNet wins video piracy trial
3. iiTrial: Telstra welcomes “legal clarity”
4. Conroy to examine iiTrial
5. iiNet fights off AFACT’s piracy appeal