It is not clear who won in the Dallas Buyers Club LLC court case and was it moot?
Yesterday saw the Dallas Buyers Club succeed in its bid to force internet service providers to reveal the identity of customers who illegally download content. In this cross post from The Conversation, David Glance argues the verdict may not be all that clear-cut.
There will be thousands of Australians who are now concerned about the prospect of receiving lawyers letters accusing them of downloading the movie the Dallas Buyers Club in April or May of 2014.
The Australian Federal Court has ruled that a group of Australian Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will have to hand over the identities of some 4,726 of their customers. The ISPs involved were Dodo, Internode, Amnet Broadband, Adam Internet and Wideband Networks. Strangely, customers of the major ISPs Telstra, Optus and TPG were unaffected by this ruling and it is not clear why these particular companies have been spared (so far).
The Dallas Buyers Club LLC who have brought the action to the courts, used technology from German company Maverickeye to detect people who had participated in sharing the film between April 2 to May 27, 2014.
I heard the fine was going to be $9,000? Is there any merit in this?
I’m kind of freaking out a little….
It would have been nice if you had attributed the graphic you used to its creator – Allie Brosh http://hyperboleandahalf.blogs.....ntact.html
Thanks Tamara,
Credits have now been made.
Cheers
Nic – Mumbrella
@goodone.
I think the $9,000 was the “speculative” amounts they chased in the USA.. and thats why the Judge ruled the letters must go through the courts to avoid a bullshit amount.
Dont panic, they are a lonng way from your letterbox yet.
We looked at the German infringment chasers market for a Village Roadshow research report we did. One has to understand that the incentive for lawyers is not the fine but the billable hours . There are two beneficiaries in the process, the content rights holder ,and the costs (lawyers income) . The former could get as low as only $5.99 (the legitimate first release movie download window cost) , the later income from the costs judgement.
It will be a lucrative industry because once you have the downloader details, its a form demand.
The lesson here is make sure you have a ISP too big to sue…
This rather small legal action will just encourage people to hide behind proxies and indeed, it encourages proxy suppliers to create even more secure services.
Far better that Hollywood, which makes immense profits from films despite it’s whinging work on methods to provide content as cheaply as it can.
They are never going to win the PR war while name actors are demanding $20M to appear in a film.
“Once the movie industry actually provides a country with a reasonably priced and easily accessed service, the need to obtain content without paying goes away. In the meantime however, they seem intent on creating their own live theatre through the Australian courts.”
Totally agree. I got Netflix the day it launched and couldn’t have been happier to give them my credit card. Haven’t even thought about torrenting a TV show or movie since….
@Sam
You have hit the nail on the head there. Like Gervais referenced in one of his Golden Globes addresses: “Actors?”
Actors are overpaid as are musicians. They have been living off royalties for far too long and the middle men who have also been earning lazy money are realising that these rivers of gold are moving away.
Actors???
we pay for data as part of our Internet contracts with ISPs
who is to say what that data is made up of ?
surely the $100 plus per month I pay to my ISP covers the access cost to retrieve data through downloads ?? or am I expected to pay just to look but not touch…
and it seems the industry is it’s own worst enemy, hence Game of Thrones S5 leak was by previews that had been sent to the press for review purposes ???
The judge has in fact allowed this organisation to extort money from people. The fact that he has asked to review the letter is irrelevant, as is the costs of the action – this can all be recovered from the people they sue under a tort.
This will allow content buyers to extort anyone who “downloads” copyright material (viewing material is downloading). If for instance a Bahamas registered company owned the material created by Allie Brosh, they could demand $50 000 in cash from Mumbrella – a “fair” amount given the value and costs of any action.