The country is currently grappling with its piracy issues and while there’s hardly a consensus of opinion right now, most of the region’s rightsholders feel that suing the general public isn’t the way to go. It’s painful for everyone involved and doesn’t solve the problem.

That said, US-based Dallas Buyers Club LLC are not of the same opinion. They care about money and to that end they’re now attempting to obtain the identities of iiNet users for the purpose of extracting cash settlements from them.

Yesterday additional information on the case became available. An Optus spokeswoman told SMH that it had been contacted by Dallas Buyers Club about handing over subscriber data but its legal representatives had backed off when it was denied. The movie outfit didn’t even try with Telstra – but why?

So-called copyright trolls like the easiest possible fight and through iiNet they know their adversaries just that little bit better. According to Anny Slater of Slaters Intellectual Property Lawyers, documents revealed in the ISP’s earlier fight with Village Roadshow show that Telstra could well be a more difficult target for discovery.

The business model employed by plaintiffs such as Dallas Buyer’s Club LLC (DBCLLC) requires a minimum of ‘difficult’ since difficulties increase costs and decrease profits. To that end, part of the job of keeping things straightforward will fall to DBCLLC’s lawfirm, Sydney-based Marque Lawyers.

Unfortunately for DBCLLC, Marque Lawyers have already shot themselves in the foot when it comes to convincing DBCLLC’s “pirate” targets to “pay up or else.”

In 2012, Marque published a paper titled “It wasn’t me, it was my flatmate! – a defense to copyright infringement?” which detailed the company’s stance on file-sharing accusations. The publication provided a short summary of cases in the US where porn companies were aiming to find out the identities of people who had downloaded their films, just as Dallas Buyers Club – Marque’s clients – are doing now.

“To find out the actual identities of the users, the [porn companies] asked the Court to force the ISPs to reveal the names and addresses of each of the subscribers to which the IP addresses related. The users went on the attack and won,” Marque explained.

And here’s the line all potential targets of Dallas Buyers Club and Marque Lawyers should be aware of – from the lawfirm’s own collective mouth.

“The judge, rightly in our view, agreed with the users that just because an IP address is in one person’s name, it does not mean that that person was the one who illegally downloaded the porn.

As the judge said, an IP address does not necessarily identify a person and so you can’t be sure that the person who pays for a service has necessarily infringed copyright.

This decision makes a lot of sense to us. If it holds up, copyright
owners will need to be a whole lot more savvy about how they identify and pursue copyright infringers and, perhaps, we’ve seen the end of the mass ‘John Doe’ litigation.”

So there you have it. Marque Lawyers do not have faith in the IP address-based evidence used in mass file-sharing litigation. In fact, they predict that weaknesses in IP address evidence might even signal the end of mass lawsuits.

Sadly they weren’t right in their latter prediction, as their partnership with Dallas Buyers Club reveals. Still, their stance that the evidence is weak remains and will probably come back to bite them.

The document is available for download from Marque’s own server. Any bill payers wrongly accused of piracy by the company in the future may like to refer the lawfirm to its own literature as part of their response.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In a lawsuit filed in the Southern District of Texas, Voltage sought to identify illegal downloaders of the movie by providing the IP addresses of Internet subscribers to the court. Their aim – to scare those individuals into making cash settlements to make supposed lawsuits disappear.

Now, in the most significant development of the ‘trolling’ model in recent times, Dallas Buyers Club LLC are trying to expand their project into Australia. Interestingly the studio has chosen to take on subscribers of the one ISP that was absolutely guaranteed to put up a fight.

iiNet is Australia’s second largest ISP and the country’s leading expert when it comes to fighting off aggressive rightsholders. In 2012 the ISP defeated Hollywood in one of the longest piracy battles ever seen and the company says it will defend its subscribers in this case too.

Chief Regulatory Officer Steve Dalby says that Dallas Buyers Club LLC (DBCLLC) recently applied to the Federal Court to have iiNet and other local ISPs reveal the identities of people they say have downloaded and/or shared their movie without permission.

According to court documents seen by TorrentFreak the other ISPs involved are Wideband Networks Pty Ltd, Internode Pty Ltd, Dodo Services Pty Ltd, Amnet Broadband Pty Ltd and Adam Internet Pty Ltd.

Although the stance of the other ISPs hasn’t yet been made public, DBCLLC aren’t going to get an easy ride. iiNet (which also owns Internode and Adam) says it will oppose the application for discovery.

“iiNet would never disclose customer details to a third party, such as movie studio, unless ordered to do so by a court. We take seriously both our customers’ privacy and our legal obligations,” Dalby says.

While underlining that the company does not condone copyright infringement, news of Dallas Buyers Club / Voltage Pictures’ modus operandi has evidently reached iiNet, and the ISP is ready for them.

“It might seem reasonable for a movie studio to ask us for the identity of those they suspect are infringing their copyright. Yet, this would only make sense if the movie studio intended to use this information fairly, including to allow the alleged infringer their day in court, in order to argue their case,” Dalby says.

“In this case, we have serious concerns about Dallas Buyers Club’s intentions. We are concerned that our customers will be unfairly targeted to settle any claims out of court using a practice called ‘speculative invoicing’.”

The term ‘speculative invoicing’ was coined in the UK in response to the activities of companies including the now defunct ACS:Law, which involved extracting cash settlements from alleged infringers (via mailed ‘invoices’) and deterring them from having their say in court. Once the scheme was opened up to legal scrutiny it completely fell apart.

Some of the flaws found to exist in both UK and US ‘troll’ cases are cited by iiNet, including intimidation of subscribers via excessive claims for damages. The ISP also details the limitations of IP address-based evidence when it comes to identifying infringers due to shared household connections and open wifi scenarios.

“Because Australian courts have not tested these cases, any threat by rights holders, premised on the outcome of a successful copyright infringement action, would be speculative,” Dalby adds.

The Chief Regulatory Officer says that since iiNet has opposed the action for discovery the Federal Court will now be asked to decide whether iiNet should hand over subscriber identities to DBCLLC. A hearing on that matter is expected early next year and it will be an important event.

While a win for iiNet would mean a setback for rightsholders plotting similar action, victory for DBCLLC will almost certainly lead to others following in their footsteps. For an idea of what Australians could face in this latter scenario, in the United States the company demands payment of up to US$7,000 (AUS$8,000) per infringement.

_{Photo: Michael Theis}

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

This year the people behind the Oscar-winning movie Dallas Buyers Club joined the game. Thus far the filmmakers have filed 66 lawsuits across the United States, targeting more than a thousand alleged downloaders.

In common with all other mass-BitTorrent lawsuits the end game is not a full trial, but the revelation of the alleged downloaders’ identities so they can be encouraged to settle. To accomplish this the movie studio asks courts to grant subpoenas ordering associated ISPs to give up their customers’ details.

Several courts have complied and recently the first settlement letters arrived in the mailboxes of account holders whose Internet connections were used to share the film.

Interestingly, not all alleged downloaders are treated the same. A settlement letter sent to a Texan Internet subscriber offers a complete settlement for $3,500, while an Ohioan in the same position was asked to pay $5,000.

The second offer was also presented in a more intimidating form, with a threat to raise the amount to $7,000 if the recipient doesn’t pay in time.

While $5,000 may sound high for sharing a single movie, the letter says that this is a reasonable request and that various courts have issued much higher damages awards in the past.

“Considering the large expense it incurs to enforce its rights, and further that some cases have awarded as much as $22,500 per infringed work, Dallas Buyers Club, LLC feels that asking for Five Thousand Dollars ($5000.00) to settle is very reasonable,” the letter reads.

One of the most often heard comments is that the person who pays for Internet access is not necessarily the infringer in these cases. The movie studio realizes this, but adds that this person is indeed responsible, an argument various courts have refuted in the past.

“Dallas Buyers Club, LLC has absolutely no interest or desire in making an innocent person pay; but it does have clear evidence to establish that your internet account was used to copy and distribute the file. Therefore, if it was not you, then it was someone that (sic) you gave the right to use your account,” the letter reads.

Dallas Buyers Club, LLC does offer letter recipients a chance to move out of the firing line if they reveal in a sworn affidavit who the real pirate is, but it’s unlikely that many subscribers will take up this offer.

Finally, the filmmakers address the “copyright troll” label handed to them by some news outlets. The company states that this label doesn’t apply, as they haven’t bought the copyrights just to sue alleged downloaders.

“No. We are not what many refer to as ‘copyright trolls’,” the letter explains, adding that their right to protect their copyrights are ignored and belittled by some Internet critics.

“Many internet blogs commenting on this and related cases ignore the rights of copyright owners to sue for infringement, and inappropriately belittle efforts of copyright owners to seek injunctions and damages,” they write.

These efforts to distance themselves from the troll label and critics seems a bit misplaced. Based on a very narrow definition of copyright troll they may have a point. But as DTD points out, by addressing the issue in their letter they only direct people to look into the phenomenon, which in settlement terms may result in the opposite of what they want to achieve.

Nevertheless, a large percentage of the people who receive a settlement letter are expected to pay up. With over a thousand defendants thus far the potential income from these lawsuits runs into the millions of dollars.

And as the dollars continue to roll in, it will be rinse and repeat for as long as the copyright protection efforts are profitable.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The company has pioneered mass-BitTorrent lawsuits in the United States and is estimated to have made a lot of money doing so.

Most recently it has filed lawsuits against alleged downloaders of Dallas Buyers Club. The first lawsuits were filed on behalf of Voltage, and this week they were followed by two mass-BitTorrent suits “Dallas Buyers Club, LLC” filed with an Illinois federal court.

The two lawsuits target 107 individuals who allegedly shared a pirated copy of the film from their home connections late January. While most of the language in the complaint is standard, the filmmakers appear to have waited for the Academy Awards, as the recent Oscar wins are prominently featured.

“Dallas Buyers Club recently received six Academy Award nominations including Best Motion Picture of the Year and was awarded Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Matthew McConaughey) and Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (Jared Leto),” one of the complaints reads.

In addition to the two Oscars, the makers also mention the Golden Globes and several other awards the Dallas buyers Club has won recently, stressing that the film “has significant value”

TF reached out the Dallas Buyers Club’s lawyers to ask if more lawsuits are queued up but we haven’t received a response thus far.

As with all other mass-BitTorrent lawsuits the end game is not a full trial, but to reveal the identities of the alleged downloaders so they can be encouraged to settle. To accomplish this the movie studio asked the court to grant a subpoena so they can order associated ISPs to give up their customers’ details.

The cased filed in Illinois this week almost exclusively targets Comcast subscribers. For defendants who are named later on, it’s wise to contact an attorney. Alternatively, DTD points out that there is a standard template that can be used to respond to the accusation.

The current defendants all downloaded the movie before it won the Oscars. However, it’s worth noting that the number of active downloaders of Dallas Buyers Club quadrupled the day after the Academy awards, resulting in roughly 100,000 extra downloads.

Even today Dallas Buyers Club is still downloaded by tends of thousands of people, which means that the pool of potential targets for these lawsuits is far from exhausted.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

One such oufit is Voltage Pictures, a production company with plenty of lesser-known titles under its belt but one with a penchant for taking legal action over the ones that break into the mainstream. Voltage drew widespread criticism for suing tens of thousands of BitTorrent users who downloaded their movie The Hurt Locker so it should come as no surprise that at the start of 2014 they are back again.

Dallas Buyers Club, a movie about a man who smuggled unapproved drugs into the United States to help fellow HIV patients, was released in the U.S. in November 2013. According to Box Office Mojo it has already brought in nearly $23 million, not bad for a relatively modest $5m budget. However, it appears that Voltage has plans to boost up revenues by suing file-sharers who downloaded a leaked DVD screener copy of the movie during January.

In a lawsuit filed in the Southern District of Texas and unearthed by THR, Voltage retreads familiar copyright-troll territory.

“Plaintiff brings this action to stop Defendants from copying and distributing to others over the Internet unauthorized copies of Plaintiff’s copyrighted movie,” the complaint reads.

“Each time a Defendant unlawfully distributes a free copy of Plaintiff’s copyrighted movie to others over the Internet, each person who copies the movie then distributes the unlawful copy to others without any significant degradation in sound and picture quality. Thus, a Defendant’s distribution of even one unlawful copy of a motion picture can result in the nearly instantaneous worldwide distribution of that single copy to a limitless number of people.”

In common with all similar suits Voltage has no idea who its targets are, having identified them only by their IP addresses. Following a discovery process involving their ISPs, however, Voltage predicts it will unmask the defendants and take them to trial by jury. That being said, if past history is anything to go by not a single defendant will see the inside of a court room. Cash settlements are the aim here.

Aside from the unusually high profile of the movie (most U.S. based trolls target fairly obscure adult movies) there is another interesting aspect to the case.

In a break from their usual tactic of suing tens of thousands of BitTorrent users, in this case Voltage are currently going after just 31. Of course, if they can extract a few thousand dollars from each defendant they can easily turn a fat profit on the exercise, but clearly that amount would be much more with a few hundred – or few thousand – defendants.

Time will tell what strategy Voltage intends to employ, but considering Dallas Buyers Club was one of the world’s most-downloaded movies in the closing days of January, this could be just the beginning.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.