The 4,700 Australian customers alleged to have downloaded an infringing copy of Dallas Buyers Club have won a big reprieve, with the company behind the lawsuit giving up on demanding cash settlements:
The company behind the movie Dallas Buyers Club (DBC) is known not only for making movies, but also by its ancillary business of chasing down alleged Internet pirates in order to force a cash settlement from them.
In several countries the company has been collecting hundreds to thousands of dollars from each of their ‘Joe Public’ targets but its efforts to do so in Australia have been beset with problems.
Through its legal representatives Dallas Buyers Club have now admitted that their battle to obtain the identities of more than 4,700 Aussie Internet subscribers is over.
Michael Bradley, the managing partner of DBC LLC law firm Marque Lawyers, told iTNews that tomorrow’s deadline for DBC to make a further application to the court would pass without a submission.
This is a huge win for Australian internet users, since it will dissuade other copyright holders from taking frivolous legal action (“speculative invoicing”) against alleged infringers in the future.
