Team DailyPedia
With the recent success of “Dallas Buyers Club”, receiving universal acclaim by both critics and audiences for its screenplay, direction, and the actors’ best performances, comes a very controversial issue that gave chills to all online users who downloaded and shared the film illegally.
This started after its owner, Dallas Buyers Club LLC and co-producer, Voltage Pictures, began a worldwide campaign particularly in Singapore and Australia to take action against illegal downloaders, The Straits Times reports.
The Court Ruling
Last Tuesday, the court ruled in favor of the movie studio ordering a “preliminary discovery” wherein the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are forced to reveal the personal details of users who downloaded the movie on BitTorrent.
According to Justice Nye Perram, the ISPs will be required to gave the customers’ details so the film studio can start with their piracy hunt. However, only few ISPs were willing to give the users’ information for privacy purposes. In addition, they are concerned about the speculative invoicing wherein the customers will receive letters from them, ordering large sums of money for the damages. iiNet even said, “such a development would open the floodgates to further claims by other rights-holders, leading to more Australians being intimidated to pay exorbitant amounts in an attempt to avoid improbable litigation.”
Thankfully, the final decision has been made..and it pleased the service providers, stating, “The result is pleasingly what we expected. By going through the process we’ve been able to ensure that our customers will be treated fairly and won’t be subjected to the bullying that we have seen happen elsewhere.” David Buckingham, iiNet’s Chief Executive Officer, also added, “Letters issued by the rights holders will be reviewed by the Judge to ensure they are not threatening — providing a significant safeguard for our customers.”
The Offenders
According to Voltage pictures, the account holder is responsible for tracing the person/s who violated the law. From schools to institutions, and even prisons, the illegal downloaders and individual infringers may face fines.
“When you upload to a pirate site you are in effect an illegal distributor, without paying the huge amount the Australian distributor Pinnacle has paid for the rights of Dallas Buyers Club. Those are the people I get angry with — you are not a distributor of the film,” said an Australian distributor.
Meanwhile, this move alarmed the illegal downloaders worldwide. Clement, a Singaporean student who studies in the US said, “Everyone is now warning each other not to download illegally online.”
Dallas Buyers Club is a 2013 American biographical drama film that tells of a man from Texas (played by Matthew McConaughey) who was diagnosed with HIV. He searched for alternative treatments and when his health improved, he tried to sell it to the public in Dallas. He makes partnership with Rayon (Jared Leto) and soon he created the Dallas Buyers Club, where the members pay four hundred dollars per month to have the necessary drugs. However, along with the process comes his battle with the pharmaceutical companies and medical establishments. As the government tried to stop him, he finds his way around the system to help those other HIV patients.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC6mv0KhOBY
