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An Australian court has blocked a US company from accessing details of customers who illegally downloaded the US movie Dallas Buyers Club.
The company, which owns the rights to the 2013 movie, is seeking compensation from people who pirated the movie.
But the Federal Court of Australia said the company had to pay a large bond before it could access their data.
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Dallas Buyers Club LLC (DBC) said it had identified 4,726 unique IP addresses from which the film was shared online using BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer file sharing network.But the Federal Court of Australia said DBC would have to pay A$600,000 ($442,000; £283,000) to obtain customer details.
In a judgement published on Friday, the court also limited any damages DBC could seek from alleged copyright infringers.
The ruling will prevent the company from so-called speculative invoicing.
This is where account holders accused of piracy are threatened with court cases that could result in large damages unless smaller settlement fees are paid.
Is this ruling a model for courts elsewhere?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 17 2015, @10:22AM
They won't even get 1/3 of their outlay back. Copyright violators have to pay $20 to $30 for a crappy film which is punishment itself. Good result!
Maybe next time they will use a VPN. Like everyone else.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 17 2015, @10:30AM
Do you have any idea how slow a VPN can be when everyone is using it? You might as well walk to the theater to see the movie.