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Hurt Locker Lawsuits May Reach Canadians, Too

Posted by timothy on from the heat-rises dept.

First time accepted submitter so.dan writes "Canadian copyright guru Michael Geist reports that the 'File sharing lawsuits involving the movie the Hurt Locker [that] have been big news in the United States for months... 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.' This is the first I've ever heard of MAFIAA lawsuits beginning to succeed in Canada. The move seems to target larger ISPs. Are subscribers of smaller ISPs — who must lease their lines from the larger ones such as Bell — relatively protected from such invasions of privacy due to some sort of technical difficulty in determining the names of subscribers? (Please excuse my technical ignorance)."

10 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. What's the point? by WhatAreYouDoingHere · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You made a bad movie. Stop involving the lawyers and blaming everybody else.

    --
    "What are you doing here, Elijah?"
    1. Re:What's the point? by phantomcircuit · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You made a bad movie. Stop involving the lawyers and blaming everybody else.

      They actually made an excellent movie.

      However it was not available for purchase for 99% of the people who wanted to watch it, so people pirated it.

      Shocking right?

    2. Re:What's the point? by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Don't know, but if I thought I could make millions by suing downloaders of something I made, I would be seriously tempted as well. Who wouldn't be?

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    3. Re:What's the point? by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The main reason for illegal copying, actually.

      Take a look at how often TV shows get copied. TV shows, the very same you get to see on TV for free anyway. Now, why would people do that?

      First, because they're not available at all where they live. It took 3 years to get Big Bang Theory where I live, and for the longest time it didn't look like we'd get it at all. Same for IT Crowd. And I'm still waiting for Mongrels (and it's not bloody likely I'll ever get to see it on TV).

      Then there's the delay for non-US people getting shows. We're at the very least one season behind. More often, more than one. Sheen's freak out, causing an interruption in Two and a half man still hasn't hit us. And it won't for some time, the writer's strike just recently caused us to watch reruns. Not to mention that they often mess up the order and that we almost certainly don't get to see "season themed" shows (for Halloween or X-Mas) when they're appropriate.

      And finally, the often atrocious dubbing. I won't go into detail, but a lot of jokes and often even the meaning get changed and mangled in translation. Simpsons are notorious for it, but for almost all shows, once you've seen the original, you realize just how crappy the dubbing is. And there's no chance in hell that you could simply forgo it.

      Now, of course one could argue to get the show DVDs. And if they're available, I'll certainly take that option gladly. But they often fail for the same three reasons: Shows that weren't on TV yet are often "not available in that country", it takes ages for it to become available on DVD (we're literally talking years here) and it's often a matter of luck whether you can actually get a non-dubbed version.

      Fix that and "piracy" will drop instantly.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  2. They likely made a deal with those ISPs by static416 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There was a previous case involving BMG that was stopped because CIPPIC intervened and showed that you can't plausibly identify an individual based on an IP address, and that there were huge privacy violations involved in just handing over subscriber information. http://excesscopyright.blogspot.com/2011/09/hurt-locker-lawsuits-about-to-detonate.html We have a Privacy Act here in Canada that is supposed to prevent these sorts of things.

    In this case the Voltage (movie production company) moved so fast that there was no chance for anyone to intervene, and the ISPs didn't put up any kind of fight, so the court process was mostly a formality. On top of that, Bell, Cogeco, and Videotron provided all the subscriber info within two weeks of the ruling.

    Two weeks is a very short time. With the same situation in the US, I think Comcast and Time Warner said that it would take them months and months to find all the information.

    My guess is that Voltage approached Bell, Cogeco, and Videotron much earlier and made sure they would not be putting up a fight. And possibly even got them to start collecting the information early. By making sure it moved quickly they minimized the chances that CIPPIC could get involved and block it as they did before. This is why they didn't include other ISPs, they wanted to make sure the ISPs they were dealing with were just going to just go along with it, and smaller providers like Teksavvy would have very likely stood up for their customers and drawn CIPPIC into the battle with them.

    Now that they have all the information they need, I'm sure that individual suits will start. But the situation in Canada is a little different than the US, and the suits may not work as well. Here we have something of a precedent showing that this information should not have been provided in the first place. Furthermore, if the defendant is able to win, Voltage will be forced to pay the defendants legal fees so it's not quite the same extortion racket it is in the US.

    1. Re:They likely made a deal with those ISPs by compro01 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I really don't understand why ISP's aren't fighting this. Once p2p traffic goes down, they lose a lot of the high-paying customers, and the investments for the infrastructure will be harder to recover.

      They don't want those customers. They want the people paying $200/month for HDTV and their video on demand (where they charge $5/movie, not that silly unlimited business from netflix) service.

      --
      upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
  3. Re:It will last as long as it is profitable by TheReaperD · · Score: 3, Funny

    I disagree. I don't think these lawsuits are about making money for the studios as much as they are about deterrence.

    I somehow don't think it will deter Hollywood from making bad movies again. ;)

    --
    "Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
  4. Popularity Contest? by mevets · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Boxoffice mojo claims it was the #116 in popularity in 2009. Going by popularity, it got its ass kicked by "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The squekquel" ( no I didn't make that up ); and nudged by a few million dollars by "Astro Boy".

    I haven't seen any of them; but I think I might go with the experts on this one.

  5. Re:How about a boycott? by QuasiSteve · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Oh goodie! A call for a boycott - because those work so well when there's still millions who won't join in on said boycott :D /sarcasm

    Let's give it a shot, though...

    Starting with the production companies...
    Voltage Pictures - not much to boycott there.
    Grosvenor Park - no watching "Love in the Time of Cholera", "Disaster Movie" (no loss there) or "Righteous Kill"
    Film Capital Europe Funds - again, not much to boycott.
    First Light Production - no "K-19 The Widowmaker"
    Kingsgate - zilch

    Ohhhh... this one should get some teenage girls going "omg I have to boycott them!? noooooooeees":
    Summit Entertainment - That's right, no more watching the "Twilight" saga, the "Step Up" series, "Push", "Knowing" (ot: great opening sequence), "The Brothers Grimm", "Mr. & Mrs. Smith", "Memento", "Vanilla Sky",

    I guess we'll leave the distribution companies be, but just for kicks, they include Warner Brothers Pictures, Lionsgate Home Entertainment, Summit Home Entertainment, Universal Studios Home Entertainment. Including them, and the other distributions, means you can now put more than half of the movies made, EVER, on your boycott list. That shouldn't be too hard, eh.

    Oh, another good one..
    Effects: Company 3 - They have worked on, among other, "Tower Heist", "Conan the Barbarian" but also the "Transformers" series, the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series, "X-Men: The Last Stand", "Sucker Punch", "Rango"... shit, they go all the way back to "Being John Malkovich". That's 202 more movies - many of which quite popular - that you can add to your boycott list.

    And we haven't even gotten to the fact that you want the crew to be included. You do realize that eventually, it's entirely likely that you will have put, say, 95% of all movies out of Hollywood - and whatever bunch more that the distributors and investment companies etc. touch outside of Hollywood - on your boycott list, right?

    Yes, the real power is in the consumer. The question however is not whether the consumer has the power to bring down corporations; that power is a given. The question is whether that consumer has the power to stop themselves from enjoying entertainment just because somebody on Slashdot is entirely deluded on the feasibility of boycotts in general, and especially those scoped as large as you just have.

    If you just want to boycott the studio that's actually doing the suing, rather than some make-up artist who would give you puzzling looks as to what the hell you're on, then boycott Voltage Pictures.

    But, again, there's just not much to boycott there, even though I guess their list is growing:
    http://www.imdb.com/company/co0179337/

  6. Re:I thought that we were not getting sued... by adonoman · · Score: 3, Informative

    Movies != music. Music is treated specially in Canada's copyright legislation.