Australian Court Rejects Dallas Buyers Club Copyright Trolling Demands

from the good-for-them dept

As we've been discussing over the past few months, Voltage Pictures took its global copyright trolling efforts down under not too long ago, seeking to shakedown lots of Australians for allegedly downloading infringing copies of Dallas Buyers Club. Australian ISP iiNet (who has regularly fought back against over aggressive copyright claims) pushed back. Earlier this year, the court allowed the copyright trolling to move ahead, but with some caveats, including demanding that DBC share the letter and telephone script it would be using to try to shake down people. At the time, we hoped this would prevent the standard level of shakedown -- and that appears to have happened.

The court has rejected the proposed letter and script, noting that it was demanding way too much, and thus not allowing DBC to move forward:

"The applicant was claiming four heads of damages and was proposing to negotiate with account holders in relation to those four amounts. I've concluded that two of those amounts could never be recovered, and in those circumstances, I've decided that what is presently proposed by Dallas Buyers Club in terms of its correspondence ought not to be permitted," Perram said on Friday morning.

"I therefore make these orders: I dismiss the prospective applicant's application to lift the stay of order one made by me on the 6th of May; and I order the prospective applicants to pay the respondent's costs of that application."

Part of the problem was that DBC was asking for money for the accused users uploading activity and "additional damages for an infringer's other downloading history." The court noted that was way out of bounds, calling them "untenable claims." Further, the court noted what was really going on here, calling out that it was never the intention to allow for "speculative invoicing" (the nice way of saying "copyright trolling.")

The court will let DBC send letters if it puts up a $600,000 bond promising that it won't try to recover those bogus damages. Instead, if it puts up the bond, it will only be allowed to recover damages in the form of (1) the cost of legally purchasing the movie and (2) the cost it took for DBC to obtain the user's details. In other words, DBC would need to put up the bond and then would only be allowed to collect a rather small amount from each accused user -- which likely makes the whole scheme not particularly worth it.

Apparently the judge set the bond so high because he feared that DBC would demand more money anyway and then not care, since it has no Australian presence:

"Because DBC has no presence in Australia the court is unable to punish it for contempt if it fails to honour that undertaking," he said.

"I will therefore require its undertaking to be secured by the lodging of a bond. Having had access to what it is that DBC proposes to demand ... and the potential revenue it might make if it breached its undertaking to the court not to demand such sums, it seems to me that I should set the bond at a level which will ensure that it will not be profitable for it to do so.

"I will set the bond at $600,000 which, if the undertaking is given, is to be lodged by bank guarantee with the registrar. "

In the issued order the Judge notes that he demanded from DBC to tell the court (secretly) what it was going to request from users, since that was not detailed in the proposed letter or phone script -- and notes that it does appear that the plan was very much about trolling (again "speculative invoicing."). Based on all of this, it appears that Australia will not be a particularly friendly place for copyright trolls.

Filed Under: australia, copyright, copyright trolls, dallas buyers club, shakedown, speculative invoicing
Companies: dallas buyers club, iinet, voltage pictures

Alleged Dallas Buyers Club Pirates To Be Asked For Employment, Income And Health Details

from the sure-you-don't-want-anything-else? dept

In the previous instalment of the long-running saga involving alleged pirates of the Dallas Buyers Club film in Australia, the court agreed that Australian ISP iiNet should hand over information about its customers. But it added an important proviso: the letter and telephone script to be used to contact and negotiate with them had to be approved by the court first in an effort to prevent "speculative invoicing" of the kind all-too familiar elsewhere.

Last week, more details emerged in another court hearing before the same judge. He was was concerned that the proposed letter from Dallas Buyers Club LLC (DBC) and Voltage Pictures LLC, the film's foreign sales agent -- which DBC is currently suing (pdf), in another twist in the plot -- would not quote a specific figure that those supposedly infringing would be asked to pay, as the Australian Financial Review reported:

Judge Nye Perram said he was concerned DBC was effectively being given a blank cheque, by not stipulating a dollar figure, which could allow the company to ask for a "very high number".

"I need comfort that you aren't going to extort these people," Judge Perram said.

The judge also refused a request by DBC that the draft letter and telephone script should be withheld from the public -- DBC claimed that doing so "could weaken the company's bargaining position and reveal to alleged infringers how they could reduce the penalties sought." As a result, The Sydney Morning Herald obtained copies of both the letter and the script, and published some interesting details. For example, the letter expects parents to shop their own children:

"If the person whom you believe to have engaged in Piracy is under 18 years of age, then please provide us with the full name and address of that person, confirm that that person is under 18 years of age, confirm whether you are the parent or guardian of that person and whether you are authorised to engage with us on behalf of that person," the letter will demand.

The proposed telephone script for people who ring the number given in the initial letter is even more extraordinary:

Callers who admit to the downloads will be asked to provide detailed personal answers including their employment status, whether or not they have a terminal illness, what their annual income is and whether or not they're serving in the military.

It will also ask the callers to incriminate themselves further:

"How many titles do you have available now and in the past on the BitTorrent network?" call centre operators will ask, according to the script.

It's not yet clear whether the judge will allow these incredibly intrusive questions -- he's expected to hand down his ruling next month. But it's an indication of the approach that DBC wants to take, and yet another reason why those receiving these emails should consider seeking legal advice, as The Sydney Morning Herald notes in a useful article on the topic.

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Filed Under: australia, copyright, copyright trolling, extortion, letter, shakedown
Companies: dallas buyers club, voltage pictures