The copyright owners for the movie Dallas Buyers Club won a court battle against iiNet this week, but the ruling could scupper any plans for speculative invoicing, making action against suspected copyright infringers prohibitively expensive. Could this be an example of what awaits us – expensive litigation and extensive legislation that achieves little in the end?

Earlier this year in Canada there was talk about VPN providers having to alert customers suspected of piracy. It’s unlikely it’ll happen here – mainly because most VPNs are based overseas – but, some could come under the jurisdiction of the new metadata retention law, at ministerial discretion.

Meanwhile, could sending out piracy notices drive more people onto VPNs to avoid scrutiny?

We hear from:
John Stanton, CEO of the Communications Alliance
Patrick Fair, Partner at law firm Baker McKenzie
Dr Michael Geist, law professor at the University of Ottawa
Paul Brooks, owner of Layer10 Consulting