In April 2014 the internet was taken by storm when first ever lawsuit was filed against online users. The Hollywood studio Voltage Pictures sued all the internet users who downloaded and shared its Oscar-winning film Dallas Buyers Club directed by Jean Marc Vallee and starring Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, and Jared Leto.
In lawsuit chain reaction, Dallas Buyers Club LLC sought an order against six Australian internet service providers (ISPs) to provide the details of 4726 account holders of IP addresses they believe had infringed copyright in their film using BitTorrent ("Dallas Buyers Club LLC v iiNet", 2015). Previously in the United States, the Voltage studio had already filed 66 lawsuits by June and targeted more than 1000 alleged people who downloaded the film via BitTorrent. They were asking for settlements of up to $US5000 per offence, or more in some cases. The Dallas Buyers Club LLC applied to the Federal Court that the six internet service providers (iiNet, Dodo, Internode, Amnet Broadband, Adam Internet and Wideband Networks) hand over the identities of the alleged pirates for copyrights infringement (“Dallas Buyers Club movie makers”, 2014).
In February 2016, the Federal court of Australia severely restricted the makers of Dallas Buyers Club LLC’s ability to take enforcement action against Australian copyright
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infringers. As a result, the DBC team dropped the case. The Online Piracy Issue Online movie piracy has found new channels due to peer-to-peer file sharing platforms like BitTorrent and uTorrent. Internet users share pirated copies of the new movie releases and share it free of cost on public forums where these files are accessed by multiple internet users around the world. The copyright infringement law is still very ambiguous when it comes to online piracy. The ethical boundaries are blurred and infringers consider it as utilitarian as it benefits diverse group of users. Weiss (2003) extends the utilitarian concept to business by going beyond the traditional, idealistic definition of ‘greatest good for the greatest number’, introducing the following tenet (Weiss, 2003, p.80): An action is morally right if “the (immediate and future) net benefits over costs are greatest for all affected”. Perhaps it is impossible to determine whether one moral theory is more valid than another. Thus, in direct opposition to moral objectivism, ethical relativism claims that there can be no definite or objective moral truth (Robinson, 2003). In terms of online infringement, the issue is an example of Egoism where something is good or bad, right or wrong, based on how it meets one’s desires or needs. The online infringement creates dilemma that law should punish just the infringer or the beneficiaries as well. This dichotomous view of the act of online “piracy" – either via rottenness of “pirates" or as a result of action justifiable by external consequences - is both interesting and well nested in the literature. Notwithstanding, it overlooks the fact that “piracy" is not homogeneous (Hardy, Krawczyk & Tyrowicz, 2013). In fact, the act of online piracy has different implications and that is one of the reason that it is illegal in some countries and legal in others. It is necessary to categorize the “piracy” act because there is two perspective of infringement. One is to blame the person who uploaded the pirated media and other is to believe that the internet users who downloaded the pirated work are legally infringers too. The final dimension possibly relevant for ethical evaluation concerns one dimension of the digital “piracy" that is illegal in most countries of the world, i.e. sharing. On the one hand, not only it is illegal, but also it allows the claims of damage on civil grounds (Ibid, 2013). The infringers are mostly members of online communities and social networks and contribute by posting pirated data on sites. In return, they enjoy peers respect and authority to allow approval to download the pirated material. In Dallas Buyers Club case, there is a thin line between legal norm and social norm and it may be argued that there is no absolute law for downloading shared material. The Response The conflict occurred when Dallas Buyers Club LLC asked Australian ISPs to provide details of all the internet users who downloaded the movie from their server. Chief Regulatory Officer Steve Dalby told TorrentFreak that iiNet will oppose the move made by Dallas Buyers Club LLC. Dalby said: "iiNet would never disclose customer details to a third party, such as movie studio, unless ordered to do so by a court. We take seriously both our customers privacy and our legal obligations” (“Dallas Buyers Club movie makers”, 2014). The culprit users started seeking legal guidance as Dallas Buyers Club LLC planned to send legal notice to the downloaders. There were four heads of damages DBC legal team proposed to claim from the ISPs' customers: a) Purchase Price: Damages equivalent to the purchase price of a legitimate copy of the Film. b) Licence Fee: A substantial fee for the uploading and distribution of the Film through the peer-to-peer network, based on a hypothetical "licence fee”. c) Additional Damages: Punitive damages based on how many other copyrighted works had been illicitly downloaded using the relevant internet account. d) Legal Costs: Recovery of DBC's investigation costs and legal costs of the preliminary discovery application on a pro rata basis ("Dallas Buyers Club – the verdict", 2015). Justice Perram had expressed concern at the potential for “speculative invoicing” that involves intimidating letters of demand for an alleged infringement. These letters often threaten court action and point to high monetary penalties if sums are not paid (Dalby, 2014). The finding that social norm about piracy is more lax than individual ethical judgment can be found in the literature. Bateman et al. (2013) distinguish between ideal ethics and formal ethics. In case of online movie piracy, the ideal ethics allows people to understand that it is illegal to share and download copyright content. On the other hand, the formal ethics has contrary application as many internet users feel that they can download shared material because there is no legal action for that. Stakeholders The Dallas Buyers Club case has multiple stakeholders and due to the scale of the lawsuit it created global impact.
This high-profile Australian lawsuit involves an Oscar-winning film, six internet service providers, Piracy investigation experts, Peer-to-peer sharing sites, Federal court and 4726 Australian account holders. The case created uproar across the world because till date internet users thought there is no consequences to download pirated material. There is no precedent case for online movie piracy because of the complexity and ambiguity to declare the level of infringement if you only download the available
material. For movie makers, the downloaders are equally involved in the infringement because they do it even after knowing that copyright content must be purchased. The Jury plays the most critical role because their legal decision will be used as precedent for future reference and impact all the internet users around the world. When ISPs share personal details of the users it breaches their privacy as well. Critical Analysis There are multiple reasons behind internet users downloading pirated material instead of purchasing item they want legally. Many people justify their downloading and copying of software, music, movies, games etc. by blaming it on the high prices those products have (Gopal & Sanders, 2000; Hinduja, 2003). The industry defends their high prices by saying that they are forced to keep the high prices or even increase the price in order to compensate for loses of income due to piracy (Hinduja, 2003). There is common knowledge that most people look for available copies on internet before purchasing it. It is also believed that people share their purchased copies over internet on peer-to-peer sharing sites to make it available for more users. Some defenders of privacy believes that sharing movies on internet provides exposure for the makers. It reaches more audience because online peer-to-peer sharing provides easy access and reviews. The pirated copies are mostly incomplete, low quality and spread viruses. Therefore, a movie lover will still purchase the legal copy for better movie experience. The key failing in DBC’s case was that they went too hard, and “overreached” in arguing for extremely punitive levels of compensation from individual infringers. The core concept of pursuing copyright infringers was actually deemed as entirely reasonable by Justice Perram - it was just the way DBC did it that caused problems ("The final chapter in Dallas Buyers Club v iiNet", 2016). It is critical in cases like this where ISPs provide user details and also breach privacy customer privacy agreement. The intention of DBC law team was to gain monetary value from the internet users that included proposed payments more than actual copyright licensing. The movie makers may argue about the project budget they lost due to piracy but again this cannot be measured. One more issue is the uniformity of law in different countries and internet users may argue on its equity in treating uploader and downloaders in relation to infringement. The court verdict has opened new debates for movie makers and internet users. Does this verdict means that internet users can download materials as there is no legal actions taken for infringers? Is copyright law needs to be revised in relation to online piracy and content sharing? These questions have no definite answers because there is an ethical debate that provide benefit of the doubt to users. It is the legal responsibility of the ISPs to monitor the internet traffic on their server and block infringement content. It will discourage internet users to share or download illegal content. Recommendations The purpose of this paper was to discuss the views of Dallas Buyers Club and internet users. From ethical perspective the infringement is a crime but it is questionable that does downloading content is part of infringement and to what extent. The laws are not always right, but that doesn’t mean internet users should download illegal content and blame the uploader for the infringement. Whether its legal norm or social norm, it is evident that downloaders are committing theft as well. The remedy for copyright infringement is to enforce internet service providers (ISPs) to block peer-to-peer data sharing. The uploader can sign legal agreement to ensure their sole responsibility and ownership of the uploaded content. This will aware internet users about the infringement law and will decrease illegal data sharing.
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