Quebec ISP To Terminate Subscribers Over Copyright

An anonymous reader writes "Quebecor, which owns Quebec's biggest ISP, has thrown in with Hollywood interests by arguing for the 'graduated response' approach that would kick off subscribers based on three allegations of infringement. The company told Canada's telecom regulator that net neutrality rules are not needed since content blocking has social benefits, including the potential for a three-strikes-and-you're-out policy."

Comments

meh

[d-r0ck]

Videotron. Great network, good speeds, low caps, and terrible customer service.

Re:meh

[GerardAtJob]

They'll lose tons of client this way... Bell will be happy

There is NO "competitive market" in Quebec.

[Anonymous Coward]

Alternatives? Where. Show me. Explain to me.

There is NO alternatives in Quebec.

Show me the "competitve market" in Ontario. Please leave the Rogers/hBell wholesalers and resellers, and show me the competition.

Primus in select area's that is not on Bell equipment? MSNi in Windsor not on Bell equipment?
nexicom in petorborough not on Bell equipment?

This competition is in isolated communities that the masses have no access to. Now explain the competition in Quebec to me please. Where should Videotron users move to again?

Whith whom should they speak to with their wallet?

I will be very surprised if the french language media even picks up on this.

Quebec isn't even aware of the copyright fight that went on. A couple of obscure articles that came out a month AFTER the re-election.

Think they will know about this?

Quebec will push for its own CRTC saying its good for the people, have no coverage, and not tell the people stuff like this will happen. They have been pushing for their own CRTC for years now.

There is close to zero awareness of these things in Quebec french media and french population.

Will Quebecor put out a press release saying what it wants to do in their media? heh

speak with your wallet? Change telco? Let me know when you found an alternative...

Re:There is NO "competitive market" in Quebec.

[Yvan256]

Who modded this troll? Is there Videotron/Québécor agents reading slashdot?!

Re:There is NO "competitive market" in Quebec.

[jsrlepage]

+1. I'm a Videotron client, and all alternatives either suck (Bell), suck more (Videotron resellers), or have no choice but to suck (TekSavvy uses Bell infrastructures).

Currently, the only service provider with a good signal, less connection drops, and an overall good stability is Videotron. I will be the first to say that our DSL service with Bell is sometimes worse than accessing cellular internet - I kid you not. But aside from Bell (throttling b1tches), Bell resellers (poor them), Videotron (Quebecor obviously wants to push their own agenda) or Videotron resellers (Cogeco comes to mind, Radioactif too), we don't have much of a choice up here.

Re:There is NO "competitive market" in Quebec.

[sumdumass]

It may not be as simple as just starting an ISP. The last mile service is the most difficult to achieve. Most ISPs in place already have the last mile infrastructure in place from other offerings or had some government assistance to get access.

DSL, and it's slow adoption is probably the most obvious example of this issue. For years, the lines were not in a shape or quality that could carry DLS signals. This is true within Canada just as much as the US. When DSL tech came availible, some areas had to wait 5 or more years before lines where upgrades and so on before they could get access to it. What people don't really realize is that ADSL was originally developed back in 1988 or so with it's roots coming from the scientific paper released in 1948 "A Mathematical Theory of Communication". It probably wasn't until 2000 or so until DSL started becoming widely availible and affordable because of all the upgrades that needed to be made. Now this is despite the telecoms already using it as an extension to DS1 services to pipe the bulk of calls outside the local exchange.

Back in 1999, I was working with a guy and we were going to start a DSL ISP in my local area and even rent bandwidth to some local ISPs (mom and pop shops) so help cover the costs. Now, this was in the US so things might be a little different but to get the tech out to the limits of the existing technology at the time, we were going to have to rewire half of the city before we even thought about putting R-DSLAMS in to extend the ranges. And even though we were replacing wire that the telecoms were already obligated to replace, we had to go through the motions of getting a right of way and all that. In the end, it think we estimated it to take something like 15-25 years to repay the initial investment if we were operating at maximum capacity for that time. In 2000 or 2001, Time Warner started upgrading their lines in my local area and offered roadrunner which started taking some of the T1 internet access accounts away, the telcos then upgraded their lines (without having to fuck with 'right of ways') and offered DSL.

Now both Time Warner and SBC/ATT will offer fiber access to 90% of the local area if your a commercial customer but all your phones and stuff go over the fiber access too which is significantly pointing to the "other uses" which covers the last mile installation costs. Hell, even Verizon's FIOS services which are sold to private customers do the phone and all too.

It may be impossible for someone to set up a second network offering the speeds and such and remain competitive in the least. This wouldn't be because there aren't enough file sharers or P2P users, it's because so much of the costs are already offset by other services and those opertunities may not be availible to the people.

Re:There is NO "competitive market" in Quebec.

[PIBM]

Until recently, the best choices where DSL resellers, with a very low price tag and great speed (8mpbs). Sadly, bell got the right to slow down their resellers lines when they detected p2p stuff on it. And if you lived in a good area, the connection quality (uptime) was great too!

Some where offering contract free service, or services without any logging etc...

Nowadays, you need to go live further away and get a DSL or cable service from the community, and if you are sawwy enough you could even become the admin of the network itself..

Re:There is NO "competitive market" in Quebec.

[earthforce_1]

IANAL, but maybe someone who is might chime in:

Since the "alleging 3rd party" and Quebecor caused damages to you ( loss of internet service ) without showing reasonable proof, I wonder if you could sue them?

Is it possible to get a class action going if they caused large numbers of people to lose internet access?

Re:There is NO "competitive market" in Quebec.

[mrclevesque]

In Montreal and VDN cable or Coop-tel are good options.

Re:There is NO "competitive market" in Quebec.

[Sentry21]

In Montreal at least, you can go with Colbanet's ADSL2+ service. They've got their own equipment, separate DSLAMs and pipes, and don't rely on Bell for anything.

A previous roommate worked for them on their ADSL2+ rollout. Turns out it was cheaper for them to move the customers they had on Bell's equipment (where they didn't pay for bandwidth) over to their own (where they did). Pretty crazy.

If you're in Montreal, give them a call and see if they cover your area. If they do, they might be worth the switch.

Do they really want that responsibility?

[LordZardoz]

I use Videotron for my own internet access. I disagree with their reasoning on this though. What I am more interested in is exactly why they (or any other ISP) would take this position? The only real gain for an ISP would be the ability to kick bandwidth hogs, which is a win for them for obvious reasons.

But if they want to have that kind of power, then they would also make themselves at least somewhat liable for what their subscribers are doing over the internet. Do they really want to take on that liability to any degree? Or do they expect to be able to get the ability to throttle bandwidth while still not incurring any liability for user activities?

END COMMUNICATION

Re:Do they really want that responsibility?

[Yvan256]

What if you're using P2P for World of Warcraft updates? What if you're using P2P to download Linux distros? What if you use P2P to download music, videos and books that are public domain?

Will the ISPs really check the validity of the complaints or simple check for any P2P activity from their users?

Re:Do they really want that responsibility?

[Yvan256]

Users downloading creative commons or public domain material or Linux ISOs also typically use more bandwidth than regular users.

Huge bandwidth users != copyright infringement.

Re:Do they really want that responsibility?

[causality]

who cares? what's the difference of the sources until it's proven in court.

This throws that whole "is it legal" argument out the window in favor of screwing anyone the industry doesn't like.

You just illustrated the futility of what they are trying so hard to do.

They aren't actually trying to screw anyone whom the industry doesn't like. That people are also getting screwed is more of a side-effect. They're trying to eliminate a technology that the industry doesn't like. The thing about that, is that the cat is already out of the bag and isn't going back in. That's why this will fail.

Only one open question remains: how many people are going to suffer in one way or another before it is generally understood that this can't possibly work?

Re:Do they really want that responsibility?

[causality]

Which we have seen back in December (when NewYorkCountryLawyer was defending an innocent 19-year-old transplant patient against the RIAA) that tangible evidence doesn't really matter as much as it used to.

That's the scary thing and I don't think most people appreciate it.

It would be better for us to have every last copyright interest and major media corporation go completely out of business and leave us with little or no music and movies, than it would be to compromise sound standards of evidence in an attempt to "help" those industries. Once you go down that path, you open up a whole world of shit that most people don't believe could ever happen here in the USA. That path leads to nothing less than modern, legally-sanctioned witch-hunts where pissing off the wrong monied interest is all it takes to ruin your life even if you have broken no laws. McCarthyism is a pretty close illustration of what can happen, except this one would be for the general public. We're not far from that point right now when you consider how much money and time it would take for you to have any hope of defending yourself against the army of lawyers that a large media corporation could send after you and the number of years that they could tie you up in court.

I sure wish people in general would wake up and realize that we can know with 100% certainty where this path leads without ever having to set foot on it. There are things that simply should not ever be compromised for any reason. Whatever we think we're trying to accomplish is not worth what this will cost.

Re:Do they really want that responsibility?

[palegray.net]

Punishing those who use a transfer protocol for legitimate purposes is simply unacceptable. We don't punish people for owning guns, shooting them at target ranges, or using them against another human beings in cases of legitimate self-defense. We punish those who use such tools in an illegal manner.

I don't believe for a second that they're going to do any more due diligence in verifying the validity of infringement complaints than the record labels do in filing them. Why is it okay to allow this to happen?

I guess I'm in the minority of those who use P2P protocols for legal purposes. Trying to download DVD images (Solaris, various Linux distros, etc) without BitTorrent is terribly painful, and bad for the distributor in terms of bandwidth utilization. I don't give two shits about music downloads, although I have an iTunes account for my wife.

good revenge tactic

[FudRucker]

know somebody who you dont like at school or work that just happens to use this ISP? just complain three times to the ISP and "Bam!" no more internets...

Crazy french people

[schwillis]

I wouldn't be suprised if part of this was pressure from quebecious sepratists who are upset french people are downloading movies in english instead of going and buy french dubbed dvd's.

Re:Crazy french people

[Yvan256]

As a french Canadian (i.e. Québécois) who prefers to watch movies and TV shows in their original versions (be it french, english or japanese with french or english subtitles), I find your comment funny, insightful and scary.

Re:Crazy french people

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, heaven forbid that a group of people try to maintain and preserve their unique culture and heritage - just like China, Japan, and hundreds of other countries do.

Re:Crazy french people

[sumdumass]

None forces Quebec culture unto others.

Actually, yes they do when you are there. Quebec is different from the rest of Canada and even institutes mandates differently. There are a group of separatist in Quebec that attempt to make it as different from Canada as possible. Take bill 101 for instance. The British parliament created a rule for minority education in different languages so Quebec made French the "official language" and refused to allow English or any other version until it was challenged in the Canadian supreme court.

To this day, Quebec attempts to lock out English or other language speaking people even though the Bilingual act forbids it. If you attempt to do business with the Quebec government in any other language, you will get railroaded until you complain to Montreal and then you still don't get normal cooperation. At least that's the way it was in 2002-2003 when I last did business there.

If you move to Quebec, you live by the provincial rules, which are set by the elected officials representing people of the province. This is no different than Ontario, Albert or any other province. If you don't like the provincial laws, you are free not to move there.

Quebec, contrary to their fucked up ideas, are a province of Canada which has it's own rules that Quebec needs to follow too. It isn't that they have their own rules that is the problem, it's that they are in some cases ignoring the country's rules that are the problem. If something is a national law (and by national, I mean Canadian) then Quebec is supposed to be in compliance with it. Bill 101 is clearly in violation with federal constitution's bill of rights section 20. Bill 101 is the most obvious case and there are more.

Again, the problem isn't that they have their own ways, it's that their own ways conflict with the country's ways thereby pushing it on you. The option to move to another state or province because one is being hostile to the country's laws and constitution is absurd to say the least. If California all the sudden said English only or Spanish only, or arbitrarily decided that the 16th amendment need not apply, the rest of the US would be outraged and make the stop. Why Canada puts up with it, I will never know. Probably because too many people said if you don't like it, leave and they did.

Allegations? By whom?

[redelm]

This looks like a great way to execute a Denial-of-Service attack -- just make false allegations. Preferably on nice lawyer letterhead and legalistic language.

Sniff the wire and get your hogging neighbors bounced. Or that grll with no taste.

Re:Allegations? By whom?

[meerling]

who said they have to be false? allegations are unproven... Hmmm.... shall we make allegations against the higher ups at that ISP? Oh, let's really tweak with them and make allegations against Canada's Telecom Regulator. The only thing worse than getting screwed with, is getting tricked into screwing the guy you bosses you around....

Proportionality, lack thereof

[StreetStealth]

Once again, there's a "disconnect" (har har) over what an internet connection means in 2009.

It's not cable TV. It's not your spa membership. This isn't 1997, where one's internet connection was a curiosity and a pastime; it's since assumed the role one's principal informational conduit with the outside world. You pay your bills with it, you file government documents and applications with it, you communicate with employers, employees, friends, and loved ones with it.

The burden of proof to take someone's internet access away, to force them to live in a non-connected world that no longer even exists, should be monumentally high. That it can be revoked simply on allegation of casual infringement on a copyright should be a lot more disturbing to people than it seems to be.

Re:Proportionality, lack thereof

[StreetStealth]

Analogy time:

If I park in someone's reserved space, then the property owner should be within his rights to call the towing company to get my car out of there. But then it should just be between the property owner and me; they send me a bill for the towing and that's it -- They shouldn't be able to call the secretary of state and have them revoke my driver's license so that I'm no longer a threat to reserved parking spaces.

Re:Proportionality, lack thereof

[JustinOpinion]

it seems that most arguers of "Hey, that's not fair, you can't [insert action] to my internet connection!" offer no alternative, and really seem to be arguing that they want to have the right to download anything they want, regardless of any law, copyright, artistic license, or what have you.

Maybe there is no alternative. But that doesn't matter. It then becomes a question of what is more important: respecting people's privacy and due process; or enforcing copyright law.

You don't have to be in the pro "download anything you want" camp to believe that privacy, connectivity, and due process are more important than copyright. You simply have to value those things more highly. The fact that many of us don't value copyright very much (because we view it as a flawed and oft-abused law) further tips the balance, such that there isn't a justification for revoking privacy and due process simply for the marginal and inconsistent protection of copyright.

Here's the question - how can anyone prove it?

Again, it needs to be emphasized: there isn't necessarily a solution. There isn't necessarily a way to totally enforce copyright without infringing people's rights. But this is hardly unique. There isn't any way to totally enforce any law without infringing people's rights. So for each law we must weigh the importance of the law against the personal freedoms or rights that may be infringed. So for instance many of us view automobiles as somewhat dangerous, and decide that reducing car accidents is sufficiently important that we will allow our freedoms to be somewhat restricted (licensed required to operate a car), and our privacy to be somewhat reduced (license plates, driver's license, etc.) in order to save lives. But there is a limit (we could perhaps reduce deaths even further if every car were constantly tracked; but I personally would view that as overly encroaching on my freedoms), even for laws I support.

In the case of copyright, it seems there is no way for it to continue to exist (and be enforced) without sacrificing more important ideals. Thus we need to either accept that these laws will not be enforceable, or we need to change these laws.

Not surprising

[Pig Hogger]

Il should be understood that Vidéoétron is owned by Québécor, and Québécor (well, PKP) is the Rupert Murdoch of french media in Canada.

Québécor owns most of Québec music companies, most of the private TV networks and a lot of newspapers.

Back when the courts determined that file-sharing was legal and ISPs should not be compelled to ID copyright infringers, Vidéoétron was perfectly willing to turn subscribers IDs to record companies.

List of Bad ISP in Canada

[Lord Satri]

Right here. Despite having friends working at Videotron, I believe the Quebecor empire (more info in Fr) is a bad one as a whole (e.g. newspaper consolidation), not only the ISP part.

Re:Typical

[unlametheweak]

Aside from the language laws (which is a divisive issue itself in Quebec), Quebec has always seemed to be fairly progressive when it comes to personal freedom. I doubt if the average Quebecois agrees with what one of its major corporations would want to do to its citizens. Quebec is far from being anything like the Bible Belt.

wow. corporations deciding what's good for public

[unity100]

get a load of that. private interests are the decider of what's good for society now.

that's what happens when you allow unbridled capitalism. if there is an unorderly chaos, a lack of authority, more powerful groups fill the gap and establish their own hierarchy. NO different than post roman empire chaos in which roman government wasnt able to restore order. in that feudal lords arose, establishing a new order. it was only in 1400s that central kings were able to establish a valid rule for the land, with the help of cannons, beating feudal lords and freeing them from the whims of robber barons.

today is no different. we have a king in the form of governments, which WE, as people, control, we have 'private interests', which are trying to assert their own authority in various aspects of social life, hiding behind capitalism, competition and free market excuses.

the only way that you can have EQUAL, FAIR environment is to bash feudal lords through your central hammer at your disposal - your federal government.

do it, and you wont live in a virtual feudal domain in your locale under whatever big group controls aspects of life. - for any fool that may err in thinking that they dont : almost all of the services&products you use in your daily life belongs to various corporations which are the holdings of various big megaholdings themselves.

Actually it is a good thing

[junkgoof]

Many of the things Quebec disagrees on work out really well. Lots of universities with low tuition, better leave for kids, $7/day day care (I was paying $55/day in Toronto), no fault insurance (way, way, cheaper, and the additional accidents are due to the badly designed highways and more aggressive drivers not to the cheaper insurance)...

Videotron is just making a case for having its cable monopoly broken up.

Re:Old news

[causality]

Isn't this already common practice? I know my ISP (COX) warned me that 3 complaints would lead to account termination.

I think it's new and maybe it's becoming common, but right now it's still unusual.

The one thing that bothers me is that it sounds like mere allegations are enough to count towards the "three strikes". I'm hearing about account terminations etc. and I am not hearing much about the burden of proof.

The summary had one thing right though:

The company told Canada's telecom regulator that net neutrality rules are not needed since content blocking has social benefits, including the potential for a three-strikes-and-you're-out policy."

I agree that this will have societal benefits. For one, if this becomes a widespread practice we're going to see encrypted or obfuscated torrent protocols in a hurry. This will start an arms race that the ISPs have no hope of winning, which is appropriate because copyright is a legal issue, not a technical issue or a customer service issue that an ISP should be concerned about. That's the best way I know of to start an arms race -- apply the wrong solution and when it fails, try harder and harder instead of recognizing a failed idea and looking for a different solution.

The other societal benefit is that more people are going to start questioning whether draconian copyright enforcement measures are in anyone's best interests. It's like places that have arbitrarily low speed limits; the model depends on the idea that most people get away with it most of the time. If there were a way to perfectly catch and fine 100% of people who exceed the speed limit by even one mile per hour, the result would be a severe public backlash that would cause the speed limit to be raised. Once the public gets tired of the copyright interests' insatiable appetite for increasingly punitive measures, those copyright interests are going to wish like hell that they had quit while they are ahead. They and their products are a mere luxury; we do not need them and as soon as we realize that, it will help to restore the balance of power that is sorely missing.

The general public is exceedingly stupid when it comes to seeing ahead of time that something is headed down the wrong path and is going to be a problem, but once they do, there's not a whole lot that can stop them. This has all the makings of a severe public backlash because what drives the awareness is the Internet and open discussion so the usual mass-media's one-sided approach to everything won't hold this one back.

ThePiratebay says it best

[Creepy Crawler]

Try here: image

No news here...

[LePrince]

I worked there, from 1998-2001... If you submitted a ticket to abuse at videotron dot ca between during 2000 and 2001, there's a 98% chance I was the one replying to it.

We'd get intrusion emails from sysadmins, particulars, etc. We had a set of rule (sysadmins complaint had more weight than regular individuals, but we still took both into account).

If we received enough complaints (10 invidiual or 2 sysadmins iirc), you'd get a call from me or a colleague of mine, asking you to refrain. 2nd time would be a final warning, 3rd time was a complete disconnection of your Internet services.

We were getting complaints from RIAA back in the day, and would process those complaints with the same rule as sysadmins.

Agreed, back in the day, botnets and all were WAY less widespread than they are now, so I'd say that 75-80% of the time, it was the actual person who did the deed (guy's registered email adress is "leetdude at videotron dot ca" and the alias they caught him under on IRC was "leetdudeqc" for example), where nowaday, a lot of people do "bad deeds" unknowingly because their computer was zombified. But even then, after a single warning, you should get your shit together and get your computer fixed, cleaned, protected. A 30$ router and a 60$ AV/AS software works wonders (not PERFECT, but a lot better than an unpatched unprotected computer plugged in directly in the cablemodem).

Three strikes and you're out, huh?

[Flakeloaf]

I hereby accuse the entire Bloc Quebecois of copyright infringement.

Come on, guys. Two more accusations and we'll never hear from these clods again!

Conflicker worm to the rescue!

[Weaselmancer]

Yeah, seriously. Figure out what worm/malware is the most prolific in Quebecor's customer base.

Have that program dl a simple client that hooks up to a P2P network and begins asking for Britney Spears albums nonstop. Then watch as Quebecor's customer base drops to zero.

Remember, it's three allegations of copyright infringement that gets you bumped off their network. Not three proven incidents.

Perhaps this would show them the error in their policy.

BZZZT, wrong!!!

[mangu]

For example, The Pirate Bay. What's the problem with them going out of business? They host a lot of illegally copied content, cracked content, or what have you. Unfortunately, though, we have the nit-picking crowd that says "but just making it available isn't illegal" that also says "but just downloading it isn't illegal"

You don't seem to be reading the news. The Pirate Bay hosts *no* content at all. They don't make anything available. All they do is supply pointers to people who claim to have something available. The whole process is called "peer-to-peer".

Or me, being a composer, am going to go buy a big gun and take copyright infringement punishment on my own hands.

I can understand your problem and sympathize with you and all other artists and people who depend on selling their intellectual creations. But the fact is that the current business model for that is broken. We need a new way to let people earn a living from their creations. Misunderstanding the problem and trying to implement radical solutions will not help accomplish that end.

Re:Old news

[Beardo the Bearded]

It's not questionable at all. Despite what CIRA has been lying about, it's perfectly legal to download music and movies in Canada.

Uploading is NOT legal.

Now paging the /. legal team: Your Law and Order training is required below my post.

Re:Typical

[multisync]

You're absolutely right on with that comment. Quebec is quite a ways from where I live, but I find myself identifying with Quebecers on a lot of issues, and strangely alienated from a lot of other "left-coasters" who live in the more rural areas of my province.

I'm sure there is the same broad spectrum of people there as in other areas, but in general Quebec strikes me as quite progressive with regard to social issues, while still fiercely libertarian on a personal level.

I doubt this will go very far; Quebecers are not shy about telling someone to fuck off, in any language.

Re:wow. corporations deciding what's good for publ

[hansamurai]

Do you think they live in a bubble of unbridled capitalism? There is plenty of regulation in the ISP "market". If you ask me, this is more the fault of the government, for their intense regulation of ISPs and letting one or two telcos completely own an area. Unbridled capitalism would mean customers could vote with their wallet and go somewhere else, but yet there are actual customers in here complaining that there are no other options!

Re:Old news

[AchilleTalon]

I wonder nobody noticed the owner of this ISP (Videotron which is also offering its services Canada-wide and even outside Canada) is Quebecor which is also owner of a major television channel, which is owner of many other entities involved in film, music and media productions.

So, no wonder it wants its ISP to lead the march to block P2P and do as much harm as possible to anything that can be used to infringe copyright laws. It is somewhat like have the cop, the judge and the claimer in the same person. In short, a conflict of interests.

Re:Typical

[meloman]

Wow! I can't believe what I'm reading here! This is an article about an ISP... what the fuck is wrong with you people? You can't read the word "Quebec" in an article without vomiting on Quebecers? Are you that stupid?

Re:Old news

[Jardine]

It's not questionable at all. Despite what CIRA has been lying about, it's perfectly legal to download music and movies in Canada.

Uploading is NOT legal.

Now paging the /. legal team: Your Law and Order training is required below my post.

The private copying rules only apply to music, not movies.