Story 2015-08-20 HZVE Australian court says no to copyright trolls

Australian court says no to copyright trolls

by
Anonymous Coward
in legal on (#HZVE)
An Australian court has ruled that people accused of illegally downloading the film Dallas Buyers Club cannot be requested to pay more than the cost of a legitimate copy of the film. As a precaution, Justice Nye Perram will also require the company to pay a AU$600,000 bond before requiring the targeted ISP to release identifying details of the alleged infringing parties, as the company has no presence in Australia.

This is in stark contrast to the abusive copyright trolling/extortion that has become common in the United States, where hundreds of accused individuals are sent letters demanding a fee of up to $5,000 to settle, using the expense of litigation, and the threat of statutory damages, to extract settlements hundreds of times higher than the cost of its movie. Why do we see this difference? The answer is straightforward: Australia does not have statutory damages for copyright infringement. This allowed the court to tie damages to the actual harm suffered. In contrast, U.S. copyright law provides statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work and does not require any showing of harm. Excessive penalties are baked into the U.S. system which encourages trolling and abuse.
Reply 5 comments

TPP (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2015-08-20 22:45 (#J0AF)

When the TPP or its clone is passed we will be just like the.good old US of A. Lawyer nation here we come! Although, this being Australia, said lawyers may not want to actually step foot inside the border...

Finally some sense (Score: 1)

by elf@pipedot.org on 2015-08-21 07:51 (#J18S)

This sounds like a very reasonable approach, hopefully this idea will spread to other countries.

Re: Finally some sense (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2015-08-25 15:37 (#JDRD)

How is this reasonable? If I'm reading the summary correctly, Australia is saying there will be no actual penalty for copyright infringement, so everyone might as well pirate everything, and at worst they'll have to buy what they pirated.

If there's no penalty beyond the price of a legitimate purchase, there's no reason not to pirate everything.

Re: Finally some sense (Score: 2, Interesting)

by wootery@pipedot.org on 2015-08-25 15:38 (#JDRE)

Oops, I posted my comment as AC. Here it is again (I know many people ignore AC posts completely):

How is this reasonable? If I'm reading the summary correctly, Australia is saying there will be no actual penalty for copyright infringement, so everyone might as well pirate everything, and at worst they'll have to buy what they pirated.

If there's no penalty beyond the price of a legitimate purchase, there's no reason not to pirate everything.

Re: Finally some sense (Score: 2, Interesting)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2015-08-25 20:45 (#JEM6)

Australia is saying there will be no actual penalty for copyright infringement, so everyone might as well pirate everything
We're only talking about an INVOICE sent to accused copyright infringers, and can also include "damages relating to costs of acquiring the subscriber's information". The ruling doesn't apply if the copyright holder chooses to follow through within the legal system and sue everyone. That would sufficiently deter copyright infringers, but is not nearly as profitable of a business model for the lawyers.

Even if you consider the Australian system a bit too easy on copyright infringers, it's still infinitely more reasonable than the heavy handed US copyright laws that enable copyright-trolls.

The situation is even more lenient in Canada due to their blank-media levy, yet the world hasn't fallen apart.