Australia internet firms must supply data

An Australian court has ordered internet service providers (ISPs) to hand over details of customers accused of illegally downloading a US movie.In a landmark move, the Federal Court told six firms to divulge names and addresses of those who downloaded The Dallas Buyers Club. The case was lodged by the US company that owns the rights to the 2013 movie. The court said the data could only be used to secure "compensation for the infringements" of copyright. In the case, which was heard in February, the applicants said they had identified 4,726 unique IP addresses from which their film was shared online using BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer file sharing network. They said this had been done without their permission. Once they received the names of account holders, the company would then have to prove copyright infringement had taken place. The ISPs involved in the case, including Australia's second-largest provider iiNet, said releasing customer information would be a breach of privacy and lead to what is known in the US as "speculative invoicing". This is where account holders are threatened with court cases that could result in large damages unless smaller settlement fees are paid. The ISPs argued also that the monetary claims which the US company, Dallas Buyers Club LLC, had against each infringer were so small "that it was plain that no such case could or would be maintained by the applicants". But Justice Nye Perram ruled that the customer information could be released on condition it was only used to recover compensation for copyright infringement. more