iiNet versus Dallas Buyers Club case starts with a reference to The Castle

IT’S one of the most important cases for the future of online downloading and Australian piracy laws, and one judge reckons it’s a bit like The Castle.

Micheal Caton as Darryl Kerrigan and Tiriel Mora as Dennis Denuto in The Castle.

AT ONE of the most important cases for the future of Australian piracy laws, a line eerily reminiscent of that of Australia’s most beloved film The Castle was uttered.

When discussing evidence in yesterday’s iiNet versus Dallas Buyers Club case, Justice Perram referred to the “the vibe” of the evidence, all but bringing Dennis Denuto’s courtroom scene to life.

The court case itself revolves around Dallas Buyers Club LLC, the rights holders for the film Dallas Buyers Club wanting internet provider iiNet to provide information on its customers who Dallas Buyers Club believes pirated the film.

Late last year it was revealed that Dallas Buyers Club used a German software tool known as MaverickEye to detect torrent users who were downloading the film. The software allegedly revealed a number of Australians who had ‘seeded the film online’ or made it available to be downloaded from their computer using peer-to-peer programs.

That software revealed around 4800 IP addresses of Australian computers, with Dallas yesterday claiming in court that it could find a further 6000 if it ran the MaverickEye software again.

Currently those IP addresses don’t give any specific details about any particular person, which is why Dallas is in court trying to force iiNet to hand over this information.

Looking closely to find the pirates.

Both the courts and iiNet are worried that Dallas Buyers Club will use a technique known as speculative invoicing.

This involves sending a legal threat to someone saying that unless they pay a sum of money they will take them to court. Often that sum of money is a few thousand dollars, when the actual loss to the rights holders would have been no more than a few hundred, or even only $5 as iiNet’s lawyers argued yesterday.

People often choose to settle, whether the sum is fair or not, because it will cost even more than that to take the matter to court.

The case still has a lot to sort out, with Justice Perram suggesting they hold the case over until the government’s anti-piracy code comes into effect in April.

As piracy becomes an increasingly big issue in Australia, how this case resolves will set a precedence for future cases and how piracy is dealt with in Australia.