The owners to the rights to the acclaimed film Dallas Buyers Club are back in Oregon U.S. District Court with a batch of “singleton” lawsuits against Doe parties, alleging both federal Copyright Act and Oregon State Trademark violations.
As Troll Defense earlier reported, Voltage Pictures, LLC teamed with another production company to bring combination copyright-trademark suits based on The Company You Keep.
This time, joining Voltage as co-plaintiff is Dallas Buyers Club, LLC, the purported owner of copyrights to the award-winning film. The new Oregon cases combine the copyright infringement claims of Dallas Buyers Club, LLC with the claims of Voltage for violations of the Oregon Trademark Act, ORS 647.
The new copyright claims contain an “ALTERNATE THEORY – INDIRECT INFRINGEMENT,” which alleges that “Defendant obtained Internet access through an ISP and permitted, facilitated and promoted the use of the Internet access for the infringing of DBC’s exclusive rights under The Copyright Act by others.” The complaints also contain some factual allegations which appear intended to account for the fact that investigations of BitTorrent activities often do not reveal who the individual BitTorrent user may be. For example, it is alleged that:
20. Defendant’s IP address has been observed as associated with the peer-to-peer exchange of hundreds of copyrighted titles through the BitTorrent network, a record of which can be filed with the Court on request.
21. The volume and titles of the activity associated with defendant’s IP address indicates that the defendant is likely the primary subscriber of the IP address or someone who resides with the subscriber, as such activity indicates the defendant is an authorized user of the IP address with permissive access.
22. The volume of the activity associated with defendant’s IP address indicates that anyone using or observing activity on the IP address would likely be aware of the conduct of the defendant.
23. The volume and titles of the activity associated with defendant’s IP address indicates that the defendant is not a young child, but an adult with mature tastes.
The known case captions (with links to complaints) are as follows:
Voltage Pictures, LLC v. Doe-50.186.3.248, Case No. 6:14-cv-1405
Voltage Pictures, LLC v. Doe-24.22.71.110, Case No. 6:14-cv-1406
Voltage Pictures, LLC v. Doe-67.189.16.171, Case No. 3:14-cv-1407
Voltage Pictures, LLC v. Doe-98.232.236.10, Case No. 6:14-cv-1408
Voltage Pictures, LLC v. Doe-74.92.171.141, Case No. 3:14-cv-1409