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Studio free to pursue movie pirates: Court

Dallas Buyers Club. Photo: Supplied

Australian internet service providers will be forced to handover the personal details of thousands of customers who could now face letters of demand from a movie studio alleging copyright infringement.

Lawyers for the Australian owners of the rights to the hit movie Dallas Buyers Club have successfully argued in court they should be allowed to personally pursue illegal downloaders.

The decision means Dallas Buyers Club LLC, the company that owns the rights to the 2013 movie of the same name, will now be able to pursue 4700 users of iiNet and other ISPs who illegally downloaded or distributed the movie.

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Internode, Amnet Broadband, Adam Internet and Wideband Networks users will also be affected by the ruling.

Justice Nye Perram today granted a discovery order, which would force the service providers to reveal the identities of the customers.

The ISPs argued the order would breach customer confidentiality and put them at risk of a practice known as speculative invoicing.

In the US similar orders have led to customers receiving legal letters alleging they could be liable for payments worth hundreds of thousands of dollars unless they agree to out of court settlements, sometimes worth close to $10,000.


However, Justice Perram stopped short of giving Dallas Buyers Club LLC a license to start billing users whose computers were used to download or distribute their movie.

He said the rights holder would be prevented from making the ISPs’ customers details public and that any letters the company sent would first need to come across his desk.

"They are to submit to me a draft of any letter they propose to send to account holders associated with the IP addresses which have been identified," he said.

Justice Perram did not say whether he would impose caps on the payments demanding by Dallas Buyers Club LLC.

Dallas Buyers Club was released to critical acclaim in 2013 by Truth Entertainment, Voltage Pictures and Focus Features and grossed more than $50 million worldwide, with about $8 million more coming from DVD sales.

The rights holders have aggressively pursued pirates who downloaded the movie for free, going as far as to engage private investigators and demand ISPs hand over details of those who illegally access the film.