Dallas Buyers Club Case Summary

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In April 2014 the internet was taken by storm when first ever lawsuit was filed against online users. The Hollywood studio Voltage Pictures sued all the internet users who downloaded and shared its Oscar-winning film Dallas Buyers Club directed by Jean Marc Vallee and starring Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, and Jared Leto.
In lawsuit chain reaction, Dallas Buyers Club LLC sought an order against six Australian internet service providers (ISPs) to provide the details of 4726 account holders of IP addresses they believe had infringed copyright in their film using BitTorrent ("Dallas Buyers Club LLC v iiNet", 2015). Previously in the United States, the Voltage studio had already filed 66 lawsuits by June and targeted more than 1000 alleged people who downloaded the film via BitTorrent. They were asking for settlements of up to $US5000 per offence, or more in some cases. The Dallas Buyers Club LLC applied to the Federal Court that the six internet service providers (iiNet, Dodo, Internode, Amnet Broadband, Adam Internet and Wideband Networks) hand over the identities of the alleged pirates for copyrights infringement (“Dallas Buyers Club movie makers”, 2014).
In February 2016, the Federal court of Australia severely restricted the makers of Dallas Buyers Club LLC’s ability to take enforcement action against Australian copyright …show more content…

This high-profile Australian lawsuit involves an Oscar-winning film, six internet service providers, Piracy investigation experts, Peer-to-peer sharing sites, Federal court and 4726 Australian account holders. The case created uproar across the world because till date internet users thought there is no consequences to download pirated material. There is no precedent case for online movie piracy because of the complexity and ambiguity to declare the level of infringement if you only download the available

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