The whole saga surrounding Dallas Buyers Club and the subsequent legal battles the production company has waged against Australian downloaders continues to get weirder and weirder.
Back in April, Voltage Pictures won its court battle with Australian ISPs including Dodo, iiNet, and four others, that would force the providers to hand over the IPs of some 4,726 users alleged to have Dallas Buyers Club during April and May of 2014. The legal catch there being that Voltage would have to cover all costs incurred by the ISPs in the process, and that the court would need to see the draft of the prospective legal letters Voltage intended to send to infringing users before any information would be handed over.
iiNet in particular have been particularly opposed to the ongoing legal proceedings, and have been staunchly defensive of its customers – pledging to keep people informed at every step of the process.
Now iiNet believes that it will be asked by Voltage to hand over the information of the users in question by the end of this week. But they’re staying one step ahead of things.
The provider has stated that, should any customer receive a legal letter from Voltage seeking damages for downloading Dallas Buyers Club, then iiNet would help to provide legal assistance at absolutely no cost. Company secretary Ben Jenkins confirmed the move in a blog post.
“If you do receive a letter you may want to get legal advice. iiNet is working with a law firm that has offered to provide pro-bono services for any of our customers. More details will be provided when agreement is reached on that front.”
Jenkins also pointed out that due to the specificities of the ruling, the amount that Voltage ultimately seeks could end up being as little as $10 per user.
And if that’s all that Voltage ends up getting out of people – at the absolute most – you really have to wonder if the juice was worth the squeeze.
via ZDNet.
