Dallas Buyers Club suffers major setback in iiNet piracy case

Dallas Buyers Club dealt huge blow

A huge blow has been dealt to Voltage Pictures/Dallas Buyers Club LLC in its piracy case against iiNet and several other ISPs today.

The Federal Court of Australia has ruled that a $600,000 bond will have to be paid for it to obtain the names and addresses of 4726 alleged Australian copyright infringers of the Oscar-winning film, Dallas Buyers Club, in order to send them scary infringement notice letters.

The draft letter, which Dallas Buyers Club LLC was ordered to submit for court approval along with its proposed phone script, asked alleged pirates questions about their salaries, if they’ve served in the military, their previous torrenting history, how many times Dallas Buyers Club was downloaded off the back of their torrent and more.

Justice Nye Perram made the decision to place such a large bond in an effort to prevent ‘speculative invoicing’ from happening in Australia, which is a practice that sees rights holders approach rights infringers directly to seek significant amounts in compensation, which often leads to out-of-court settlements.

No dead cats

The damages sought by Dallas Buyers Club LLC fall into four claim areas: (a) a claim for the cost of an actual purchase of a single copy of the Film for each copy of the Film downloaded, (b) a claim for an amount relating to each infringers’ uploading activities, (c) a claim for additional damages depending on how many copies of other copyrighted works had been downloaded by each infringer, and (d) a claim for damages arising from the amount of money it has cost DBC to obtain each infringer’s name.

The ruling found that two of the four claims of damages set by Dallas Buyers Club LLC were not up to snuff, stating that “Claims (b) and (c) are untenable claims and are outside the proper ambit of the power.”

Justice Perram also stated that "the Court was not going to open the sluice gates until it saw the proposed correspondence and until DBC satisfied the Court that it was that approved correspondence, and not something else, such as a dead cat, that DBC was going to send to account holders."

Stephen Lambrechts
Senior Journalist, Phones and Entertainment

Stephen primarily covers phones and entertainment for TechRadar's Australian team, and has written professionally across the categories of tech, film, television and gaming in both print and online for over a decade. He's obsessed with smartphones, televisions, consoles and gaming PCs, and has a deep-seated desire to consume all forms of media at the highest quality possible. 

He's also likely to talk a person’s ear off at the mere mention of Android, cats, retro sneaker releases, travelling and physical media, such as vinyl and boutique Blu-ray releases. Right now, he's most excited about QD-OLED technology, The Batman and Hellblade 2: Senua's Saga.

Latest in Internet
tiktok
How to edit TikTok videos
Quordle on a smartphone held in a hand
Quordle hints and answers for Saturday, March 15 (game #1146)
NYT Strands homescreen on a mobile phone screen, on a light blue background
NYT Strands hints and answers for Saturday, March 15 (game #377)
 Facebook social media app logo on log-in, sign-up registration page
How to delete all your Facebook posts
A smartphone on a sofa showing the WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal apps
Forget AI – WhatsApp is planning a simple messages feature that could be its most useful upgrade in years
Quordle on a smartphone held in a hand
Quordle hints and answers for Friday, March 14 (game #1145)
Latest in News
Super Mario Odyssey
ChatGPT is the ultimate gaming tool - here's 4 ways you can use AI to help with your next playthrough
Brad Pitt looks over his right shoulder with 'F1' written behind him
Apple Original Films will take you behind-the-scenes of a racing cockpit in this new thrilling F1 movie trailer
AI writer
Coding AI tells developer to write it himself
Reacher looking down at another character from the Prime Video TV series Reacher
Reacher season 3 becomes Prime Video’s biggest returning show thanks to Hollywood’s biggest heavyweight
Finger Presses Orange Button Domain Name Registration on Black Keyboard Background. Closeup View
I visited the world’s first registered .com domain – and you won’t believe what it’s offering today
Image showing detail of the Leica D-Lux 8
Still can't get a Fujifilm X100VI? This premium Leica compact costs less, and it's in stock