Filmmakers Ask 'Pirate' to Take Polygraph, Backtrack When He Agrees (torrentfreak.com)

The makers of Dallas Buyers Club (a 2014 movie, which won three Academy awards) are going to great lengths to crackdown on BitTorrent pirates. According to a report on piracy news blog TorrentFreak, the filmmakers challenged an accused pirate to submit a polygraph test to prove that he didn't download a copyright infringing copy of their movie. The accused pirate, California resident Michael Amhari, insists that he did not download any pirated copy of the Dallas Buyers Club and agreed to take the polygraph test. Upon hearing this, the filmmakers, who had imposed a $100,000 fine on Amhari, retracted the offer. "When plaintiff's counsel then agreed to take such a test with the proviso that defense costs and attorney fees be covered, plaintiff then refused to pay costs and revoked his offer to conduct a polygraph," said Amhari's counsel Clay Renick. TorrentFreak reports: "After receiving exculpatory evidence and the sworn declaration of defendant, Mr. Davis then refused to file a dismissal and proceeded to demand that defendant appear in the action or he would file a default." The defendant's counsel added: âoeThis behavior is galling and it should not be permitted by the court.â Because of these dubious tactics the court should set aside the default that was entered earlier this month. According to Renick, Dallas Buyer's Club has nothing more than an IP-address to back up their infringement claims, which is not enough to prove guilt.

Comments

Lawyer sense tingling

[flopsquad]

TFS paints an intriguing picture, and hooray fighting against copyright trolls and all that.

But.

Because of these dubious tactics the court should set aside the default that was entered earlier this month.

If the court has entered a default judgement you have already fucked up big time. Usually by failing to do something the court requires of you (like respond to plaintiff's complaint) in a timely manner.

And there is no legal mechanism I'm aware of by which a copyright holder can unilaterally "impose a $100,000 fine." They can offer to settle for $100K or threaten litigation. That'd be surprising, as the copyright shakedown MO is to offer settlement for 1-3 orders of magnitude less, in order to induce quick and quiet resolution. Or you can get a default judgment of $100K if you file suit and defendant does something inadvisable like completely ignore it.

I'm not saying that's what happened here, TFA doesn't give any details on how we got to where we are. We do know that he has an attorney now. And because of how much trouble you can get in for letting your client's case default (your inattention and subsequent harm to your client is actionable malpractice), I would be pretty surprised if he'd had an attorney this entire time and had been otherwise fighting this legal battle by the book, only now to be unfairly blindsided by a default judgment.

(This is all speculation, I'm not your attorney, this is not legal advice, refer to sig, if you experience an erection lasting more than four hours call your doctor, etc etc you get the point.)