After the rights holders for Dallas Buyers Club were told they could not use “speculative invoicing” to claim unfair damages from Australians who illegally downloaded the movie, they decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. Aussie pirates sure did feel pretty invincible at that point.
But Village Roadshow co-CEO Graham Burke is still out for blood, moving forward with the company’s plans to sue the ever-loving shit outta anyone who continues to illegally watch or obtain copyrighted material.
While the details on what pirates could expect from the push have been hazy, Burke has since clarified in a conversation with Kotaku how they’ll be pursued and the amount they can expect to pay if they get hit with a notice.
If you’re in its crosshairs, Burke says Village Roadshow will be sending out notices this year and once they push it through the courts, other rights holders will likely follow suit, so if you’re an avid Game of Thrones torrenter, Foxtel will probably be coming after you, too.
“People who infringe [copyrighted movies] are people who steal – it’s theft and it’s not a victimless crime,” he said. “There needs to be a price to pay. What we plan to do [is] sue people that are stealing our movies. So if someone steals Red Dog and Mad Max Fury Road, we will sue them for the two viewings of those movies, plus some damages.”
Burke says the penalty will be in the region of $100 to $200 per infringement, so if they reckon you’ve downloaded 5 movies illegally, that’s anywhere from $500 to $1,000.
“We’re talking the equivalent of a parking fine, but it establishes that [piracy] is theft and is the wrong thing to do,” he said.
Here’s how they plan on it going down; infringement notices will be sent to suspected pirates via mail informing them of the movies they’re suspected of stealing. Recipients can then either cough up the money or plead extenuating circumstances, which the company will review before deciding whether to take action.
Burke says anyone suffering from financial hardship or ill health will not be pursued.
“For people who are in dire circumstances, we will withdraw the action if [they] undertake not to steal in the future,” he said. “I think most people are pretty honest – you only have to look at the old-fashioned newspaper box where you took the newspaper and put the money in the slot. So we’ll be relying on people’s inherent honesty.”
Village Roadshow still have to convince ISPs to give up the names and addresses of those suspected of pirating its content, but given it can provide Australian courts with an actual amount it plans to retrieve, the company will likely succeed where Dallas Buyers Club failed.
Because they couldn’t settle on an amount, Dallas Buyers Club LLC had its case thrown out for what’s called “speculative invoicing”, which would see them requesting far more in damages than it would be entitled to.
“The information we have at this stage is that we will be able to get the information we need through the courts, and ISPs will be compelled to play ball,” Burke said.
If you’ve been yelling some incoherent nonsense about having a VPN while reading this, here’s the part you’ve been waiting for. Burke admits that there’s currently no way to pursue those using a VPN to mask their IP addresses.
“It appears right now that there is no solution to people who use VPNs,” he said. “But I think technology will develop and there will be ways to detect these users eventually. It’s worth noting that people who use VPNs do have to pay for them and 40 per cent of [piracy sites] do have malware, so it’s a dangerous place to be in.”
So it looks like you’re safe for now, VPN users.
