Aussie ISPs Forced To Hand Over User Details In 'Dallas Buyers Club' Ruling

Australia-based internet service provider (ISP) iiNet and several other independent contemporaries will be forced to provide the makers of 2013 blockbuster Dallas Buyers Club with the details of users who allegedly illegally downloaded the film following a Federal Court ruling in favour of the filmmakers.

As Fairfax reports, in what has been widely acknowledged as a landmark case for Australian digital piracy law, iiNet, Internode, Dodo, Amnet Broadband, Adam Internet and Wideband Networks were the subject of an attempted "preliminary discovery" application by Dallas Buyers Club LLC — essentially an avenue for rights-holders wishing to pursue legal action against a person or company whose identity is unknown but able to be discovered through third-party information. 

The ruling, handed down by Justice Nye Perram, now means the group of ISPs will have no choice but to hand over the details of 4726 unique internet protocol (IP) addresses suspected of pirating the film. The ruling does not extend to email addresses, and DBC had to submit a draft letter of the type it planned to send to identified users to the court to be approved.

In the United States, such "speculative invoicing" — in which an accused user is threatened with court action and exorbitant damages if they don't pay a lesser fee upfront — is relatively common practice, though its legality in Australia is less transparent, to the point that Michael Wickstrom, the vice-president of royalties and music administration at DBC parent company Voltage Pictures, voiced his concerns over iiNet providing examples of speculative invoicing as it occurs in the United States, saying that the letters would have to undergo localisation processes to be applicable in Australia.

"Whether speculative invoicing is a lawful practice in Australia is not necessarily an easy matter to assess," Justice Perram said, before, according to Fairfax, "stating that it may constitute misleading and deceptive conduct as well as unconscionable conduct".

ISPs and rights-holders are expected to reach agreement by this Wednesday on a mutually acceptable code, part of which must include the issuing of infringement notices before more serious legal action is pursued.

The decision comes amid a changing online entertainment landscape as the federal government moves forward with its plans to crack down on piracy, including a website-blocking bill, which is currently with a parliamentary committee, designed to allow rights holders to make legal applications to have Australian ISPs to block access to international websites suspected of perpetuating piracy practice.