Dallas Buyers Club Case Struck Down By Federal Court (businessinsider.com.au) 33
thegarbz writes: After a previous court ruling covered on Slashdot where Dallas Buyers Club was forced to post a $600,000AU bond and accused of speculative invoicing, it appears they have once again failed to make a case for damages in the Australian Federal Court. After asking for a reduced bond of $60,000AU in exchange for details of only 10% of the original alleged pirates, and after dropping the request for punitive damages, Justice Perram concluded that the damages sought were still unrealistic severely limiting the liability of the alleged pirates if the case manages to go ahead. Dallas Buyers Club now has 60 days to respond before the case is terminated.
Good... (Score:1)
I like to invest some cash and, I'm not sure if this is the group but I had an offer forwarded to me about investing in a company that bought things like movie rights, copyrights, and things like that. I declined to invest though I think the friend invested some in one of these companies. I hope he loses his shirt. Well, no, but I hope he learns a lesson. I'm not positive but I am damned near positive that this was the name of the company. I'm almost sure... :/ Ah well... I did not participate. I don't real
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Yeah, it's too damned complicated for me. I don't think they wanted a huge buy-in, maybe 75k minimal - if it's the company that I'm thinking of. I probably should have saved the email. It was like MLM spam.
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Dallas Buyers Club LLC, however, is the company filing the lawsuit and it is entirely possible that they could have courted investors as described.
Did you think the movie had become sentient and started filing lawsuits on its own behalf?
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They did. It was, indeed, this company. I'm nearly certain. You got a greater percentage if you got in early or if you bought it at over certain dollar levels. It was like MLM spam stuff that he'd forwarded to me. I'm almost certain it was this company or they had a nearly identical name.
Context (Score:5, Informative)
A bit of context might help to understand the summary without having to play follow-the-link, especially if you only know "Dallas Buyers Club" as a film starring Matthew McConaughey - or don't know of it all.
Dallas Buyers Club LLC is the company that owns the rights to the film (I think) and has been attempting to get the names of ISP users that they believe have been illegally downloading the film, for the purpose of sending them letters demanding payment of a fine to avoid being taken to court (the "speculative invoicing" of the summary).
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The summary was as clueless as any I've ever seen. It didn't make sense for a Dallas Buyer's Club to be speculative invoicing in $AU for smuggled AIDS drugs (presumably smuggled by the mentioned pirates). WTF?
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Good catch. I should have added LLC to the summary, or rather an editor should have :-)
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If it's any consolation, most people forget that their audience doesn't already know everything they knew on the matter, so they forget to summarize enough to keep everyone in the loop, and often when people do actually remember this they don't do a very good job of presenting the correct amount of backstory such that the audience isn't bored to the point of ignoring the presenter.
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If it's any consolation, most people forget that their audience doesn't already know everything they knew on the matter
Yeah in my case I forgot because I submitted a previous stories about this on Slashdot and it was discussed several times. Though it is a silly assumption that everyone has seen every story. ;-)
But hey at least I provided links to the previous post
Penalty to fit the crime (Score:5, Informative)
It's all quite straightforward. The Judge demanded that they ensure the penalties fit the crime basically - and they were unwilling to do so, so he threw it out.
That could be totally wrong, I didn't read the article, I read some twitter summaries (yeah, I know) but that's the jist I got from it.
Reasonable enough, very surprising and fantastic someone applied some common sense.
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And hats off to my old ISP iiNet for sticking up for their customers rather than tossing them under the bus with a cheery "Sounds like it's your problem, matey".
Re:Penalty to fit the crime (Score:4, Interesting)
That's basically it. More than from the summary:
- DBC wanted to follow the USA model of suing customers after they were successful in forcing discovery.
- The judge said you will get the names for the IP addresses only after you post a bond and only after we read the letter.
- DBC submitted a letter
- The court decided that their request for punitive damages was predatory.
- DBC submitted a new letter only asking for an international distribution licence + legal fees, and only wanted 472 names instead of 4726 in exchange for only posting a $60k bond instead of a $600k bond.
- The court decided their request for international distribution license fees were predatory.
Effectively if this goes ahead all the alleged pirates are liable for is $4.99 + a share of the court's legal fees.
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Both. The Australian system generally runs on a loser pays system which is one of the reasons we have less frivolous lawsuits here.
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It's all quite straightforward. The Judge demanded that they ensure the penalties fit the crime basically - and they were unwilling to do so, so he threw it out.
That is it in a nutshell.
Australian here, I've been following this for quite some time and this conclusion was pretty much what was expected. DBC LLC came over here to Australia with no idea how the Australian legal system worked or the Australian psyche and thought they could throw their weight around like they did in the US. It failed miserably, not because of the technical merit of their case (which they won) but because they didn't get that our judges worked for the good of Australia, not for greedy
Some background (Score:1)
The first thing to be aware of is that this case was bought under the allowances in Australia's Metadata retention Act, passed under the guises of protecting Australian citizens from terrorist actions and investigating serious crimes.
The second thing to be aware of is that this Australian Legislation (passed earlier this year) and the CISA Act passed in the U.S Congress are the same thing, with the same intent, more than likely being sold to the U.S Congress on the same grounds. It follows the pattern of
Re:Some background (Score:5, Informative)
The first thing to be aware of is that none of this comment is accurate. This case was brought forward before the Metadata act was passed and is completely independent of it. I am not saying that the mandatory storage of metadata is a good thing, it's not, but you make your arguments look stupid if the first line of your argument is completely false.
The Dallas Buyers Club LLC vs iiNet case was lodged in October 2014, the data retention laws were passed in March of 2015 and came in to force in October of 2015. None of the evidence put forward by DBC was provided by the ISPs involved or was in any way retained, accessed, or otherwise related to the metadata laws.
Please feel free to fight these laws and any kind of movement into other countries. But co-opting unrelated events is not the right way.
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Please feel free to fight these laws and any kind of movement into other countries. But co-opting unrelated events is not the right way.
That is not my intention, the density of how many of these laws are being passed means I have been writing so many of these letters lately, I have confused two legislations. Thanks for pointing out the mistake.
The Dallas Buyers Club LLC vs iiNet case was lodged in October 2014, the data retention laws were passed in March of 2015 and came in to force in October of 2015. None of the evidence put forward by DBC was provided by the ISPs involved or was in any way retained, accessed, or otherwise related to the metadata laws.
I have unintentionally linked the two by remembering what I saw in the Data retention law under Section 187K "The Communications Access Co-ordinator may grant exemptions or variations", 187G "Consultation with agencies and the ACMA" (Australian Media and Communications Authority) with when the Nationa
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No worries.
Enforcement agencies in the context of this legislation are police and security forces and do not extend to access by media company representatives such as MPAA. The ACMA is directly involved because ACMA is the entity that has responsibility for managing the internet in Australia, for example they manage they current blocklist that covers illegal content. The part of the acronym that is important in this context is the C. They are the primary agency dealing with communication. Their mandate
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With an average leech-share ratio of about 1, the average member of a BT swarm is no more of an "uploader" than they are a downloader.