UPDATED | Australian P2P hubs are closing their doors following the music industry's raid on West Australian ISP People Telecom (formerly Swiftel).

Both Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) and People Telecom have been ordered to appear before the Federal Court this Wednesday, in a case that could decide the future of online file sharing in Australia. Though MIPI has repeatedly stated that it is not interested in individual users, there is no doubt that the court case will be closely watched by file sharers, concerned that their activities might bring them to the attention of the law.

MIPI chief Michael Speck says that "MIPI has already laid down several targets for future raids", and already, several West Australian hubs have decided to pull the plug. A popular internet radio station and a BitTorrent community both ceased operations last night. The entry page has been removed and now hosts a sombre notice, which says "Due to the increasing number of raids on P2P sites which seem to be getting closer and closer to home, we've decided to call it a day. This is to protect ourselves, as well as you users." Interestingly, other WA-based P2P communities will continue to operate, albeit behind increased security and scrutiny of members.

Both services made use of the WAIX peering network, which provides ISPs based in WA the means to transfer data between each other at reduced cost. Many ISPs added the WAIX network to their free traffic lists, providing users with a way to share large files without impacting upon their quota limits. A similar network called PIPE exists in much of Eastern Australia. Both networks do not support the use of their services for illegal purposes, and have taken steps to prevent such use, but crafty file sharers constantly manage to evade these measures.

The raid has had a ripple effect around Australia, with Victorian Torrent site VIXBit stating that "We decided it was time for Vixbit to call it a day." A similar story was heard in Adelaide, where PeeringSA was shutdown when PIPE staff terminated their accounts and removed their servers from hosting facilities at a PIPE data centre.

Not everyone is rolling over to MIPI, however. The administrator of one site has vowed to seek legal advice as a result of MIPI's enquiries into the legality of his operations.

The voluntary take down of the sites shows how successful MIPI's approach has been. Torrent swappers have long believed that it would be difficult to prosecute them because of the highly distributed nature of the BitTorrent protocol (anyone can put up a tracker and there is no central organisation or network to target.)

However, MIPI has shown that it might win its war on piracy through publicity alone: by doing high profile raids on well known businesses, then making audacious claims to the press about what it has found, it is sending shockwaves throughout the internet community. One user suggested that "Australia's isolation, which has protected it in the past, may no longer be a deterrent to law-enforcement authorities."

Links:

• People Telecom raided in P2P crackdown  (Whirlpool, 10 Mar 2005)
• Court date set for Aussie BitTorrent case  (ZDNet, 14 Mar 2005)
• Anti-piracy raids on net firm  (Whirlpool Forums)