Hurt Locker file sharing cases come to Canada
File sharing lawsuits involving the movie the Hurt Locker have been big news in the United States for months as tens of thousands of lawsuits have been filed. It now appears that the lawsuits are coming to Canada as the Federal Court of Canada has paved the way for the identification of subscribers at Bell Canada, Cogeco, and Videotron who are alleged to have copied the movie. Late last month the court ordered the three ISPs to disclose the names and addresses of subscribers linked to IP addresses alleged to have copied the movie. The ISPs were given two weeks to respond and are entitled to be reimbursed for their expenses. In reaching its decision, the court cited the BMG Canada v. Doe case, the last major Canadian case involving peer-to-peer file sharing lawsuits. That case opened the door to further lawsuits, though it established some privacy safeguards. In this instance, the court cited PIPEDA as evidence that the personal information can be disclosed as well as federal court rules for the legitimacy of the claim and the necessity of acquiring the information for the lawsuit to proceed. There is no indication that the ISPs challenged the order or that there was an opportunity for a public interest intervention as was the case in the earlier CRIA lawsuits.
Michael Geist – Michael Geist’s Blog
[Geist is the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. He can be reached by email at mgeist @ uottawa dot ca]
September 15th, 2011 at 9:49 am
I thought downloading was legal because of the levies we already pay, wasn’t that a precedent set in court a few years ago? Why has this judge not read up on that?
Or do legal precedents that defend people’s rights no longer hold any water because we have a Conservative majority?
September 16th, 2011 at 7:16 am
Remember when Ma Bell had to be broken up in the states? There was a reason for this. Remember the crap they were pulling when they held the long-distance monopoly? Am I the only damn person that was paying attention back then? I mean, WTF is going on here? That was child’s play compared to the current situation.
WE MUST make sure our last-mile service providers, those who hold monopoly over an essential utility (not unlike electricity, water, or sewage), are ONLY in the business of providing connectivity.
It is INSANE that these guys, with their blatant conflicts of interest, are the only thing standing between you and a frivolous lawsuit that will cost THOUSANDS of dollars to defend against. These “ISPs” didn’t even try to protect their customer’s privacy. DID NOT EVEN TRY.
They want YOU to not share files. They want YOU to be afraid. You got that? They want you to watch their TV and on-demand services, and stay the hell away from ANY alternative, legal (UBB to crush Netflix) or not. They are minding their “bottom line”. It’s what corporations are expected to do by their shareholders. That’s why we have regulation, and that regulation needs to be competently written and enforced. Are people so daft they do not understand such simple concepts?
You will NOT get politicians that push for proper regulation when the EXACT same companies that would be subject to such regulation are the ones underwriting political careers, directly via crony-contributions and indirectly via their fully-owned propaganda outlets. Don’t you get it yet? Am I speaking Greek to you?
Note that the same ISPs that stood up for their customers the last time this was tried about 5 years ago (Telus and a few others) were NOT included in this petition to the court. This was NO coincidence. They don’t want the few ISPs that are motivated to protect their customers to send the big legal guns in like last time, lest these flimsy accusations get tossed. They only chose the ISPs that have a clear business interest in striking FEAR in the hearts of subscribers. Get the message, slave?
The damn house is on fire and nobody even gets off the couch. The politicians couldn’t care less. Is anyone even trying to fix this problem? LOL, yeah, right.
I can pick anyone I want, file some papers, and get your full contact information, and then it’s SHAKEDOWN time for you! What do you think about that? Have fun paying some shyster a couple grand to fight my shyster, who just filled 5000 other ‘lawsuits’ (with a volume discount for me yay!)
It is so simple. But, this type of regulation would help the little guy, while hurting the ambitions of the corporations that desire to turn the internet into a bastardized version of cable-TV, continuously siphoning cash from the wallets of consumers, and denying the freedom to communicate with others.
No, instead we have regulators that don’t know an IP header from a hole in their ass, and politicians that OPENLY take money from the media corporations and subsequently bring out draconian legislation to make sure you are tracked and traced in the name of protecting their profits.
Well, is anyone going to do anything? Am I the only one that tries to get on my elderly MP’s case about these things? It doesn’t help if it’s just me.
Sit down, write an email, write a letter, make some calls, bug your MP in person when they come back to town, shout from the mountain top, whatever it takes! Most of them are senile or on the take, but they understand political pressure and will bend, as we saw with the UBB fiasco.