Stop Sweating: The Producers Of "Dallas Buyers Club" Have Ended Legal Proceedings Against iiNet

Well alright, alright, alright.

Do you remember when a Federal Court judge ordered iiNet and other local ISPs to surrender the identities of more than 4700 movie-pirating account holders to the producers of Dallas Buyers Club, and everyone was worried that they’d be exposed and forced to pay back the copyright holders?

Well, never mind.

Dallas Buyers Club LLC has ended their battle with Australian torrenters, officially dropping legal proceedings against iiNet and its customers.

According to Business Insider, the law firm representing the film’s producers simply felt they had no further avenue to explore after a ruling in August meant that they would have to pay a $600,000 bond before receiving names and addresses of account holders from the ISPs.

Here’s the story:

In April of 2015, Justice Nye Perram told iiNet, Dodo, Internode, Amnet Broadband, Adam Internet and Wideband Networks to hand over the details of the picture’s pirates to Dallas Buyers Club LLC.

However, suspecting that the producers would then contact the individuals and demand compensation in lieu of further legal action (an act called “speculative invoicing”), Justice Perram insisted he see the first draft of their potential letters before they receive the names.

In August, after seeing their letters and the exorbitant amount they were seeking from punters, Justice Perram decided they could only seek compensation around the price of a single copy of the film (and a small fee to recover legal costs). Basically, each person would only be asked to pay about $100.

Oh, and Dallas Buyers Club LLC would need to place a $600,000 bond before getting those contact details, all to recoup approximately $470,000.

Their lawyers contested the decision in December, but the judge was having none of that.

Hence, their halting of proceedings today.

And a mighty sigh of relief spread across the land.

But one word of warning to torrenters: Though Justice Perram’s decision was a landmark ruling in the world of ISP identity protection and “speculative invoicing”, don’t think that the producers behind Dallas Buyers Club will be the last to have a crack at making their money back from alleged pirates.

Is this the end, or only the beginning?