The ACMA was NOT miffed! What in fact happened is that a third party made a complaint to the ACMA about the link being posted. The ACMA judged this complaint and rightly judged that the post with the link in question did point to an illegal entry. However, they do not have the power to proactively go out and hunt for further postings of the link. They can only act on complaints. :) The ACMA has stated this afternoon that they had absolutely NO problem with the original submitter posting the the link as part of his posting of the response to his complaint. ACMA purely acted on the new complaint about the link being posted. And *ALL* that they have been able to do is get the EXACT page with the link banned. Since then, the link has appeared everywhere, but ACMA are not able to do anything until a further complaint is made about each individual posting.

Australia (the previous government, now in opposition) was stupid enough to sign a free trade agreement with the US half a decade ago that included most of the clauses of the DMCA tagged onto it and applicable to australians. This was basically a copyright law forced on the country without any voting on it by our full parliament. The current Australian government might be willing to overturn those clauses to protect an australian business, but unfortunately it's a business that is currently attacking them over the government-proposed internet filter.

It is somewhat strange that AFACT should be going after the THIRD largest ISP in Australia, rather than the much bigger Bigpond and Optus, whose users could be said to be just as guilty. It may not be so strange when one considers that iiNet's directors are the most vocal opponents in Australia against the Great Internet Wall of Australia being proposed. And the government's proposal is not just to filter "illegal" content (the usual mix of child pornography and terrorist cook books) but also the nebulously defined "unwanted content" (it would most certainly be in AFACTs interest to get torrent sites declared "unwanted" and thereby blocked). Far be it from me to go launching into a conspiracy tirade, but the timing of this action, just as the anti-internet filter movement is gathering momentum and increasing publicity, is suspicious at least.