Dallas Buyers Club loses second bid to identify iiNet 'pirates'

The Federal Court has rejected Dallas Buyers Club's latest request to access the details of customers who allegedly illegally downloaded copies of the film.

iiNet customers who allegedly downloaded illegal copies of the Hollywood movie Dallas Buyers Club can rest a little easier after the Federal Court rejected a second bid to get their contact details.

Voltage Pictures is the company that owns the copyright for Dallas Buyers Club. It has been attempting to get iiNet and other internet service providers to reveal the contact details of 4726 customers it claims have been caught illegally downloading the movie.

In August the company received permission to ask for the details under strict conditions that included Voltage Pictures paying a $600,000 bond and only being allowed to ask for the cost of the movie and some out-of-pocket expenses.

In September Dallas Buyers Club went back to Justice Perram and asked to access the details of just 472 customers in exchange for paying 10 per cent of the bond, or $60,000. They also requested the right to ask for more compensation.

But Justice Perram rejected the request on Wednesday and said the entire case would be thrown out of court by February 11 unless further action was taken."The present application must be dismissed with costs," he wrote in his judgment. "Some finality must now be brought to these proceedings.

"What I will do is make a self-executing order which will terminate the proceedings on Thursday 11 February 2016 at noon, unless DBC takes some step before then."The judge seemed to express some exasperation at Dallas Buyers Club's attempts to buy time by requesting an adjournment, stating that the case was not bigger than Ben Hur.

"There is no reason why DBC could not have led its evidence about what a reasonable licence fee would have been at the earlier hearing," he wrote. "It needs to be kept in mind that what is before the Court is a preliminary discovery application, not Ben-Hur.

"The interests of justice are not served in comparatively modest procedural litigation such as the instant case by permitting no stone to go unturned. The enterprises of the parties must be kept proportionate to what they are arguing about."

Dallas Buyers Club had also asked for additional damages because the customers were uploading the film and therefore acting as distributors of illegally downloaded copies of the movie.

But Justice Perram rejected this argument and the call for more compensation because "the account holder had been detected uploading a sliver of the film."Dallas Buyers Club LLC must now choose to either press on with an expensive appeals process or accept Justice Perram's earlier ruling.

This would force it to pay the $600,000, which would become forfeit if it asked for more than permitted and engaged in speculative invoicing.
Perth-based iiNet was once known as a fierce advocate for the rights of its customers.

It has taken less of a public stance on issues like data retention and copyright cases since being bought for $1.56 billion by TPG Telecom earlier this year.But the telco has pressed on with the fighting of this case alongside M2 Group, which owns Dodo.