The Dallas Buyers Club Piracy Case Is Kaput (For Now)

You can breathe a sigh of relief, unscrupulous Mcconaughey fans: the Dallas Buyers Club piracy case has just been thrown out of court. In a landmark ruling, the Dallas Buyers Club LLC case against iiNet was dismissed, with the company denied access to the private records of iiNet customers. There is, however, a chance of an appeal.

For the past few months, the rights holders to the movie Dallas Buyers Club have been embroiled in a legal battle with iiNet for the personal details of more than 4000 of the ISP's customers with the intent of pursuing damages for copyright theft.

Speculation has been rife as to how much alleged infringers would be asked to pay, with many suspecting that "speculative invoicing" would be employed. This is a legally dubious practice in which alleged pirates are sent sternly-worded letters demanding payment of arbitrary and often exorbitant "damages".

After much toing and froing, it seems that the case has been dismissed in its entirety. The main sticking point was the company's attempts to claim costs for a worldwide non-exclusive distribution agreement. In his judgement, Justice Perram slammed elements of Dallas Buyers Club LLC's argument as "unrealistic" and "surreal".

The story isn't over yet, though: The company still has until noon 11 February 2016 to appeal the decision. For now though, it would seem that the torrenters have won.

[Via Business Insider]


    I would just like to say a big SUCK SHIT you wankers.

    Best regards.

    For now though, it would seem that the torrenters have wonActually, I'd say it's a win for iinet.

      This. But also its worth noting that this form of "targeting" would've affected many innocent individuals because there was no burden of proof against a person; the person who's name was on the internet service would simple be labeled a pirate and be forced to pay an unknown (but likely exorbitant) fine. I live in a sharehouse, I'm the tech guy so I do the internet thing... we've had 5 different people living in this place over the last 3 and a half years. I will not be happy if I'm label a pirate due to someone doing something illegal.

        "be forced to pay an unknown (but likely exorbitant) fine"

        Actually, the terms of the court order were that DBC pay a bond of $600,000 which would have been forfeit if even one of their letters demanded more than the cost of the film and reasonable legal expenses.

        Last edited 17/12/15 9:25 am

    Part of me would have liked it to go ahead just so someone could then send them an invoice for having to sit through it. Granted i haven't seen it myself, but they would have to pay me handsomely to consider it.

    This article isn't quite right. The justice has given DBC LLC until 11 February to come back with an alternative proposal, and if they don't then the case will be automatically determined against DBC with costs.

    If they come back with an acceptable proposal, and the judge has already indicated what that is (that the downloaders pay for the cost of the movie plus a little bit to cover investigative and legal costs and that there's no witch-hunt), that he'll let that go through. DBC has said that's not good enough, but that may have been on the assumption that the judge wasn't serious.

    It's only if they don't come back with an acceptable alternative, and that the automatic finding is made, that they'll need to appeal.

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