Dallas consumers club will need to pay bond for info on Australian pirates, courtroom guidelines

illegal downloaders can sleep simpler tonight with the Australian Federal court ruling that the names and addresses of pirates of Dallas customers club will not be shared.

The court docket ruled this morning that until Dallas customers membership (DBC) LLC can pay a $600,000 bond it'll now not be capable of reap the names and addresses of Australians accused of illegally importing the film.

This comes after DBC LLC gained the right in April to achieve the info of 4726 pirates that used Australian net service companies to illegally add the film.

Justice Nye Perram got here to the decision as a manner to prevent DBC LLC from issuing “speculative invoices” to alleged pirates. The bond method that if DBC does move ahead and trouble speculative invoices it would lose the entire bond, which is worth more than the damages it would receive from copyright infringers.

“because DBC has no presence in Australia the court is unable to punish it for contempt if it

fails to honour that venture. i will consequently require its task to be secured by way of the lodging of a bond,” Justice Perram stated in his judgment.

“Having had get admission to to what it's miles that DBC proposes to call for and the ability sales it would make if it breached its assignment to the court docket now not to call for such sums, it seems to me that I must set the bond at a stage on the way to ensure that it'll not be worthwhile for it to do so.”

Speculative invoicing involves sending a prison danger to a person announcing that until they pay a amount of cash they'll should face court docket. frequently that amount of cash is a few thousand bucks, whilst the real loss to the rights holders might have been no a number hundred bucks.

human beings usually pick out to settle outdoor of court — whether or not the sum is fair or now not — because it would value even more than that to take the matter to court docket.

Justice Perram stated that DBC proposed 4 distinctive ways it is able to call for cash from copyright infringers.

The permissible needs protected infringers paying DBC the cost of a single reproduction of the movie for every replica downloaded, and also protecting the fees required to obtain every infringer’s call.

however, Justice Perram said DBC’s other two demands were ridiculous and the cause he positioned the bond in vicinity.

DBC wanted to pursue the costs for a one-off license price from every uploader on the basis that each changed into engaged inside the big distribution of the film. but Justice Perram claimed that he would be happy that, if a case become added to trial, it might be dismissed “as a case having no affordable prospects of achievement”.

He also without delay dismissed DBC’s preference to assert similarly damages if it was proven that an infringer turned into a serial pirate.

Justice Perram said the bond changed into also installed region due to the fact DBC had not supplied any clear figures on what it would be chasing in damages from infringers.