The content industry has warned that it will have to go back to its old ways of dragging people through courts and charging them with piracy.

The content industry had been hoping that it could get ISPs to do their dirty work for them. Under its plan it would order ISPs to shut off pirates. However a landmark court case in Australia decided that ISPs were not responsible for piracy and could tell the Content industry to go forth and multiply.

Sabiene Heindl, general manager of the music industry's anti-piracy arm, Music Industry Piracy Investigations, said that the Federal Court decision suggests that copyright owners broadly may have no choice but to sue individuals for illegal file-sharing. This would be a most unfortunate outcome.

The content industry had no success in tackling piracy with individual court cases and earnt itself a lot of bad publicity by dragging kids, old and dead people into court claiming that they were pirates. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said he was awaiting the outcome of the iiNet case before deciding whether there was a need for legislative change. Yesterday, his spokeswoman said the government would examine the decision before making any further comment.

Conroy is entirely on the side of the content industry and has rubbished iiNet's defence in the past.