The Australian ISP is standing up for its clients

Nov 10, 2014 11:01 GMT  ·  By
Dallas Buyers Club pirates are being sought out by the movie studio
3 photos
   Dallas Buyers Club pirates are being sought out by the movie studio

iiNet, the second-largest Internet Service Provider in Australia, seems to be really interested in figuring out just how exactly have the Dallas Buyers Club LLC fellows determined that their customers were illegally downloading copies of the famous movie.

The move comes after the studio behind the film moved its anti-piracy campaign abroad the United States, targeting Australian pirates. The company has chosen to target subscribers of iiNet, an ISP that doesn’t really like taking such orders for granted and has a history of fighting for its clients.

This is, of course, the current situation, when iiNet is taking a stand for the people that it has contracts with. To this end, the technology used by the Dallas Buyers Club LLC to determine that iiNet customers were pirating the movie will go under the microscope in the Australian Federal Court.

Barrister Richard Lancaster, who represents iiNet in court, has told Justice Nye Perram that the company is trying to understand the system used to track user IP addresses, which is detailed in the expert report the company has filed as part of the case. Even so, iiNet says that it is not familiar with the system and that this one is different from anything used by any organization it went up against in court before, ZDNet reports.

IP tracking via Germany

It is believed that Dallas Buyers Club LLC used the services of a company from Germany, known as Maverickeye UG, which boasts to have “highly sophisticated software” to obtain data that has quality, consistency, and relevance for the legal system.

This is the exact type of data that the new Australian legislation mentions that ISPs should be required to retain, including allocated IP address.

For its part, the movie studio says that iiNet had been on notice for some time, knowing that they were seeking access to customer details. Barrister Ian Pike, representing the Dallas Buyers Club LLC, has noted that the case will rely on some of the evidence iiNet gave during a High Court case a couple of years back, talking about its intentions to comply if a rights holder seeks access to customer data through court.

Of course, it’s not like the iiNet is giving a straight-out “no” answer, but it wants to make sure that it has all the details itself. For this purpose, knowing just how the process works and how its customers were tracked is pretty important.

Dallas Buyers Club photos (3 Images)

Dallas Buyers Club pirates are being sought out by the movie studio
Matthew McConaughey plays the main role and won an Oscar for his performanceJared Leto (left) also won an Oscar for this particular role
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