Dallas Buyer’s Club piracy case thrown out
Federal Court blocks access to contact details of 4726 people who downloaded Dallas Buyers Club.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News
The case between Dallas Buyers Club LLC and iiNet looks set to be dismissed in its entirety.
The Federal Court yesterday threw out a second attempt by Voltage Pictures to access contact details of 4726 people who had illegally downloaded copies of The Dallas Buyers Club.
In a Federal Court hearing that lasted less than a minute, Justice Nye Perram issued his judgement on the matter, saying that “some finality must now be brought to these proceedings.”
“It needs to be kept in mind that what is before the Court is a preliminary discovery application, not Ben-Hur,” he said.
In August the company received permission to ask for the details under strict conditions that included Voltage Pictures paying a $600,000 bond and only being allowed to ask for the cost of the movie and some out-of-pocket expenses.
In September Dallas Buyers Club went back to Justice Perram and asked to access the details of just 472 customers in exchange for paying 10 per cent of the bond, or $60,000. They also requested the right to ask for more compensation.
He said the entire case would be thrown out of court by February 11 unless further action was taken.
In his judgement, Justice Perram said that it was “wholly unrealistic” that BitTorrent users would have sought out a distribution license for the film rather than downloading it. He also noted that DBC had failed to make a case for how much that fee would be.
10 Responses
So what’s the fee they want? $1? Asking because that’s what local video store wants.
Ted, sounds like you are trying to justify theft….if woolies charges 10cents more than coles for a can of baked beans, does that mean you can steal it. Theft is theft…stop doing it.
Theft is theft but media piracy isn’t – otherwise we wouldn’t need separate laws to deal with it. Stealing a can of beans, or a burger, is not the same as viewing a copy of something.
I don’t condone people downloading something for free that they could otherwise wait a few months and pay for, but I understand why they do it. Media distribution companies can either continue to forlornly try to hold back the incoming tide or they can live in the real world and provide their content people in all countries at the same time for a reasonable price. The music people worked it out a long time ago. How long before the penny finally drops for the film and TV people?
Completely different situation from both a legal and practical point of view.
I bought some region free blu-rays a few weeks ago from Amazon. They included digital copies of the movie. Went to redeem the digital copies. You have to be US/Canada. After stuffing around with proxy settings for an hour finally got access. It shouldn’t be this hard. My cash should be worth the same to Universal as someone who lives in Sydney Australia or Sydney Nova Scotia.
Also, if studios want to do something about the ‘problem’, provide flexible digital copies with all movies that can be downloaded for iTunes HD copies rather than these rubbish UV SD codes. Marvel seem to be the only ones that do it in Australia where as most of the Blu-Rays in the US seem to.
I hope this continues to be pursued. You can’t just take content without consequence.
Rubbish these people the DBC mob are just legal thieves and gougers it was a good thing it got booted
When they internationally release every thing on all platforms at the same time at the same price instead of artificially trying to enforce old geo-blocking policies that do not apply in today’s international society, then they have a case.
Until then artificial price manipulation by media corporations is the real crime.
Would you walk into a McDonalds and take a Big Mac because it is cheaper in another country? I wouldn’t think so.
I don’t understand why people think it is OK to take something that they haven’t paid for. At least seek it out through other means and pay your way. No excuse ever for illegal downloading.
False analogy, media content readily available, there are no borders on the internet, however media companies are try to force out dated business models upon it.
And yes, if people are pirating rather than buying it is the providers fault, make all content available at the same time at the same price, the internet is not fast food.
The case hasn’t been thrown out. Voltage Pictures applied to change the terms of the judges previous decision that they had to put up $600k as a good behaviour bond (to stop intimidation and speculative invoicing). They wanted to put up a fraction of the bond for a fraction of the customer details. They also wanted to allege distribution and higher damages because they had new evidence one iinet user posted a clip of the film online.
The judge rejected the motions and things remains the same. They still have until Feb 11 to put up the bond before to get the details and invoice iinet users who allegedly illegally downloaded The Dallas Buyers Club for the cost of a viewing of the film plus a small administration fee.
Australia is not the US, where Hollywood buys favourable copyright and criminal laws from politicians. Here only Brandis supported that, and he’s gone…