In the first case of its kind, an Australian court has ruled that an internet service provider cannot be responsible for illegal downloading.

iiNet, Australia's third largest ISP, was taken to court by a group of 34 movie production houses.

The group included the Australian divisions of Universal Pictures, Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox.

They claimed that iiNet was guilty of copyright infringement for not preventing illegal downloads of films.

The movie group hired investigators to track the numbers of iiNet customers using BitTorrents to illegally download movies.

They wanted iiNet to warn the offenders and then cut them off if they continued to download. The group also wanted certain websites to be blocked by the ISP.

However, the judge ruled iiNet was not responsible for the online behaviour of its customers.

I find that the mere provision of access to the internet is not the 'means' of infringement, said Federal Court Justice Dennis Cowdroy: If the ISPs become responsible for the acts of their customers, essentially they become this giant and very cheap mechanism for anyone with any sort of legal claim.

More than 150 people have approached consumer publication Which? Computing claiming to have been wrongly targeted in crackdowns on illegal file-sharing.

ACS:Law has sent thousands of letters to people claiming they have illegally downloaded material and offers them a chance to settle by paying around £500.

Which? says it has been approached by some - including a 78 year-old accused of downloading pornography - who have no knowledge of the alleged offence.

ACS:Law claimed its methods were accurate and said that it would send more letters soon.

However, since the latest letters were sent two weeks ago, ten new people have come forward saying they have been wrongly accused. One told Which?: My 78 year-old father yesterday received a letter from ACS Law demanding £500 for a porn file he is alleged to have downloaded. He doesn't even know what file-sharing or BitTorrent is so has certainly not done this himself or given anyone else permission to use his computer to do such a thing.

Which? Computing is concerned that too many innocent people are being wrongly accused. Innocent consumers are being threatened with legal action for copyright infringements they not only haven't committed, but wouldn't know how to commit, said Matt Bath, technology editor of Which? Many will be frightened into paying up rather than facing the stress of a court battle, he added.

He advised people who believe they have been wrongly targeted to rigorously deny it and, if possible, provide physical evidence of where they were when the infringement took place.

ACS:Law is currently under investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

The BBC claims that plans by Freeview broadcasters to apply digital rights management to high-definition television content is light-touch, as Ofcom launches a second public consultation on the matter.

The regulator's first public consultation was made back in September. Ofcom said it got a large number of responses that raised a number of potentially significant fair use and competition issues.

Second time around, the basics of the proposal haven't actually changed, but the BBC is hoping that a little coaxing will get naysayers to come around: The proposed Freeview HD content management approach is so 'light-touch' that some have argued that it is not worth having, writes Graham Plumb, the head of distribution technology at the BBC, in a blog post on the BBC's site.

One of the proposals in the UK plan would be for Ofcom to restrict HD programming information only to receivers that have been implemented for DRM.

The BBC and other Freeview broadcasters propose:

• all video and audio content will be broadcast unencrypted
• content management would only apply to HD recordings (ie not standard definition recording)
• time-shifted viewing of recorded HD content would be allowed
• at least one archive HD copy on a removable device would be allowed
• networked distribution and viewing of HD content in the home would be allowe
• uploading of standard definition copies of HD content to the internet allowed copyright permitting

Question: what do McDonald's, Monsanto and Trafigura have in common? Answer: they've all been accused of routinely administering SLAPPS. These are Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation — forms of strategic legal intimidation or gamesmanship employed by large corporations against their critics in order to frighten and harass them, and tie them in legal knots. Such actions are also designed to demonstrate to would-be critics the fate that awaits them should they dare to publicise their views.

That SLAPPS frequently involve threatening to sue critics for libel makes it particularly important that Index, Sense about Science and English Pen have followed the example of some Australian states and proposed limiting the ability of corporations and associations to sue, unless they can prove malicious falsehood.

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Nearly a third of children aged six to 14 admit regularly watching programmes illegally, either by streaming them to a television or downloading them, a survey published yesterday found.

Shows like Glee, Heroes, Lost and House can be downloaded from the internet and played back on a television or computer hours after they are broadcast in the United States. 16% of the 4,347 children surveyed also said they download pirated films before they are released.

We were incredibly surprised by how young these children are — for six-year-olds to be downloading is astonishing, said Justin Pearse, editor of in New Media Age magazine, which commissioned the survey: Copyright and legality don't seem to be a barrier for kids — if they want to see something before it's on TV or DVD, they'll just get it online.

A new Internet law to curb piracy was proposed by the Spanish government according to which judges will have the power to ban websites that offer downloads of movies, music and other forms of entertainment illegally.

Speaking at a news conference, Justice Minister Francisco Caamano said that a judge's order was necessary for this decision to be taken quickly within four days after all sides have been heard. The new draft, however, needs an approval by the parliament before it is brought into effect.

When the law was initially proposed in November, a judge's order was not necessary and websites offering illegal downloads could be blocked or shut down by a new regulatory body. This was met by protests from Internet users and bloggers who said that the government could use the law to censor content on websites.

Thousands of people had signed a manifesto opposing the draft law, and Prime Minister Jose Louis Rodriguez Zapatero had assured that a modified version of the draft law would be introduced by the government which would take care of all these matters.