Canadian File Sharing Plaintiff Admits To Copyright Trolling

An anonymous reader writes "Canipre, a Montreal-based intellectual property rights enforcement firm, has admitted that it is behind the Voltage file sharing lawsuits involving TekSavvy in what is described as a 'speculative invoicing' scheme. Often referred to as copyright trolling, speculative invoicing involves sending hundreds or thousands of demand letters alleging copyright infringement and seeking thousands of dollars in compensation. Those cases rarely — if ever — go to court as the intent is simply to scare enough people into settling in order to generate a profit. The Canipre admission is important because it is consistent with arguments that the case involves copyright trolling and that the Canadian Federal Court should not support the scheme by ordering the disclosure of subscriber contact information."

Comments

A Sad Day for Canada

[DotNM]

It's a sad day for Canada when we start doing this kind of stuff too.

Re: A Sad Day for Canada

[dropadrop]

I would imagine that you can't judge how sad the day is before seeing what the reaction is. I would imagine this scheme is active in most countries enforcing copyright.

Re:A Sad Day for Canada

[MightyMartian]

There are no lack of European countries with proportional voting systems who are taking hard lines on copyright issues. It seems to matter little how elected representatives are chosen, what seems to matter is that mainline political parties in most countries are sucking at the teat of Big Media.

Re:A Sad Day for Canada

[cbiltcliffe]

(fun sidebar: the word "Canpire" autocorrects to "Vampire" on my phone)

Even more fun sidebar: 'Canpire' is wrong, too. This is Montreal, ergo, french.
'Canipre'....it would be pronounced something like...'Can-ee-pray'...

Re:A Sad Day for Canada

[Gorshkov]

The problem is the First-Past-The-Post election system. If you say that General B'weto received less than 40% of the votes in the Republic of Masuto, but rules with absolute power, this person will be called a dictator. Now look at Canada's latest election results. Yes. The Ruler received just under 40% of the votes. Less than 4-in-10 voters gave their support. But the rule with absolute majority.

1) First-Past-The-Post favours different parties at different times - it all works out in the end, provided you think about time scales larger than one meal to the next. One thing it *does* do, is give a party chance to form a stable government and actually govern. In most proportional systems, you wind up with an almost permanent gridlock system, where the tail winds up wagging the dog. YMMV
2) The Prime Minister does not have absolute power - nothing even close to it.
3) General B'weto will remain in power until he dies, or is overthrown by a coup; any elections he decides to have, will be elections where he gets over 90% of the vote.
4) The WILL be another election - there is no choice in the matter. If the Prime Minster looses, he will leave 24 Sussex Drive on his own, without requiring police escort of military prompting.

Yeah - we live in such a brutal dictatorship.

Re: A Sad Day for Canada

[sjames]

The blame goes to unregulated and unrestrained capitalism. It is the wingnuts that have taught everyone else that unregulated and unrestrained is the one true capitalism, and so made it the target for blame.

Imagine a world where you could rob the liquor store just by telling the first cop you see that the money in the till is actually yours. The store owner is, of course, welcome to file a protest but the filing fee amounts to double the amount in the till.

Now they infest Canada.

[Anonymous Coward]

Voltage Films is a well known copyright trolling firm in the United States. Unfortunately for our neighbors to the north, it appears that these cockroaches are now infesting them as well.

Here's a sample of the RECENT cases they've filed in the U.S.:

Voltage Pictures, LLC v. Does 1-12
Copyright Infringement – Ohio Southern District Court Filed: 3/4/2013

Voltage Pictures, LLC v. Does 1-24
Copyright Infringement – Ohio Northern District Court Filed: 3/4/2013

Voltage Pictures, LLC v. Does 1-11
Copyright Infringement – Ohio Northern District Court Filed: 3/4/2013

Voltage Pictures, LLC v. Does 1-43
Copyright Infringement – Ohio Northern District Court Filed: 3/4/2013

Voltage Pictures, LLC v. Does 1-22
Copyright Infringement – Ohio Southern District Court Filed: 3/4/2013

Voltage Pictures, LLC v. Does 1-26
Copyright Infringement – Ohio Southern District Court Filed: 3/4/2013

Voltage Pictures, LLC v. Does 1-19
Copyright Infringement – Ohio Southern District Court Filed: 3/4/2013

Voltage Pictures, LLC v. Does 1-72
Copyright Infringement – Ohio Southern District Court Filed: 3/4/2013

Voltage Pictures, LLC v. Does 1-13
Copyright Infringement – Ohio Southern District Court Filed: 3/4/2013

Voltage Pictures, LLC v. Does 1 - 198
Copyright Infringement – Oregon District Court Filed: 2/19/2013

Voltage has many other ongoing lawsuits in the states. They've been filing them since at least early 2011.

Re:Now they infest Canada.

[Nos.]

Fine, you take Voltage Pictures back, and we'll take Celine back.

the appropriate response

[sribe]

Turn over all the subscriber info to Canpire immediately. Let them send out demand letters. Then send out letters to all those subscribers explaining the exact nature of Canpire's business, on the theory that there's a least a handful of those subscribers with money, good lawyers, and short tempers ;-)

Re:the appropriate response

[realityimpaired]

Absolutely not.

I'm not worried about receiving a letter from them, but I absolutely do not want them to have my contact information at all. Who's to say what they're going to do with that information besides launch a bullshit lawsuit? They may still be able to make money off it, even if not a single suit gets filed.

Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

'speculative invoicing' I think the correct term would be blackmail.

Fraud?

[CheeseTroll]

IANAL, but why isn't this simply considered fraud, and prosecuted as such?

Re:Fraud?

[i kan reed]

Because law-suits are, fundamentally speaking, a necessary tool to hold people accountable, and creating a precedent(Canada is common law, right?) that suggests you can be punished to raising the possibility of a lawsuit can be dangerous. In this case, I don't think it is, because maliciousness is inherent in the planning, but think what unsavory corporate lawyers might do with such a ruling.

Re:Fraud?

[realityimpaired]

Because, theoretically, there actually has been a crime committed in which they are actually the victims. As such, they have a right to defend their properties.

Whether they actually intend to prosecute it is irrelevant, when considering whether they have an entitlement to do so.

sucks, don't it?

Re:Fraud?

[gr8_phk]

Because, theoretically, there actually has been a crime committed in which they are actually the victims. As such, they have a right to defend their properties.

IIANAL but I don't think that's true. If they want to sue someone go ahead - in court. But to send a notice making unfounded claims and seeking payment is probably mail fraud - at least in the US.

Re:Fraud?

[realityimpaired]

send a notice making unfounded claims

that's the point... the claims aren't unfounded, at least not to the best of their knowledge. They have evidence (which has yet to be accepted/proven in court) which links the IP address in question to an infringement that is illegal under Canadian law. They're seeking to have the information which links the IP address to a real person so that they can sue.

Whether they actually intend to sue, or simply send threatening letters, has nothing to do with it. The whole point of the case is that the validity of IP address evidence itself needs to be tested in court before the subscriber information is released, not after.

The CIPPIC briefs in this case are particularly interesting/important reading... you can find them, along with all of the other court documents, here: http://www.teksavvy.com/en/why-teksavvy/in-the-news/teksavvy-customer-notices/legal-documents-for-request-for-customer-information

Re:Fraud?

[davecb]

In addition, their actions have been found to be a fraud upon the courts in some cases.

Applying to the courts for an order to identify people on the grounds you will sue them, and then extorting payments instead, makes the initial application fraudulent.

In the U.S. and the U.K., this has led to legal or law-society actions against the fraudulent plaintiffs. In Canada, as we just passed a law to limit such suits, it may lead to stronger measures.

--dave

Interesting business model

[Virtucon]

1) Send out threatening letters
2) ???
3) Profit!

I call that a Racket as in Racketerring...

Traditionally, the word racket is used to describe a business (or syndicate) that is based on the example of the protection racket and indicates a belief that it is engaged in the sale of a solution to a problem that the institution itself creates or perpetuates, with the specific intent to engender continual patronage.

So you have companies asking people to pay for protection or immunity from further civil or criminal prosecution. All they have to do is just pay up.

I don't know if Canada has Racket laws, but in the US we do have the RICO law which has been effective in going after organized crime, especially around Rackets such as this.

Re:Interesting business model

[cdrudge]

When the mob knocks on your door and says that you need to pay up or bad things might happen, that's racketeering. The bad thing that might happen is not of the individual or business's doing, rather it's the mob ransacking the place, torching it, scaring away customers, etc.

While they may have no intentions of actually going after file traders if they don't "settle", they have the option to legally do so. This isn't getting into the debate of whether IP addresses are sufficient evidence to sustain a case, just that the legal option.

Perhaps if the case was absolutely baseless then extortion could be a possibility. But even just an IP address probably would be sufficient enough to get past an extortion claim.

Re:Interesting business model

[Anonymous Coward]

In Quebec, Canada we have law which is called "Act respecting the Collection of Certain Debts", which states that:

[...]
Prohibited practices.

3. No person may, for the collection of a debt,

  (1) represent that, failing payment, the debtor is liable to arrest or penal proceedings;

  (2) communicate with the debtor when the latter has notified him or her in writing to communicate with his or her legal adviser;

  (2.1) communicate verbally with the debtor before legal action is taken, if the debtor has informed the person in writing that the debt is contested and that the creditor may proceed with legal action; however, for the collection of a debt by the Government or one of its departments, this prohibition only applies as of 120 days following the sending of a demand for payment of the debt;

  (3) use harassment, threats or intimidation;

  (4) disclose information that might cause undue injury to the debtor, his or her surety, their married or civil union spouses or members of their families;

  (5) collect or claim from a debtor a sum of money greater than that which is due;

  (6) use a writing that might be mistaken for a document used, authorized, issued or approved by a tribunal, a government, a municipality or an agency of any of these;

  (7) claim a sum of money from a person other than the debtor or his or her surety;

  (8) communicate verbally with a person believed to be the debtor but who, in the course of a prior communication, indicated that he or she was not the debtor.
[...]

Depends on the motivation the Judge believes

[nebular]

The judge is going to have to interpret what the motivation behind the practice is. Based on my limited knowledge of precedent in this area, if the judge feels the motivation is profit driven (i.e. Day to day Business as usual) then he could throw it out. Canada is not known for tolerating overly litigious business practices. However if the Judge believes this is to collect lost revenue due to infringement, then this could go right through.
Goon is more believable that it's going after lost revenue then Hurt Locker.

Re:In Other Words

[JMJimmy]

You mean extortion. Blackmail involves extortion by keeping a secret/returning information/etc.

Misleading title

[SVILaw3545]

It is not clear whether Canpire is "behind" the lawsuits at all and specifically, the VOLTAGE PICTURES LLC v. JOHN DOE AND JANE DOE case (Federal Court Number : T-2058-12 http://cas-ncr-nter03.cas-satj.gc.ca/IndexingQueries/infp_RE_info_e.php?court_no=T-2058-12).

To be "behind" the lawsuit, Canpire must have some form of ownership over the works. The court materials show that Voltage claims ownership. So Voltage is and remains "behind" the lawsuit. Canpire are Voltage's "experts" on the issue of who is infringing. Barry Logan of Canpire has provided an affidavit in support of Voltage's motion for disclosure. The affidavit is inside the motion materials, available at http://cas-ncr-nter03.cas-satj.gc.ca/IndexingQueries/infp_RE_info_e.php?court_no=T-2058-12. So Canpire's role has not been a secret. As "experts," they might hope their side wins (although 'experts' in Canadian law should not be advocates) and they get paid handsomely, etc. but that in itself is not being "behind" a lawsuit.

What is secret at this point is whether there is some form of agreement between Voltage, Canpire, and Voltage's lawyers (Brauti Thorning Zibarras) with respect to the monies they presumably will get from the mass collection letters and whether the agreement violates the any laws on champerty or maintenance or perhaps, as in the UK case (ACS:Law), lawyers' codes of conduct.

In the Voltage case, CIPPC (Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic www.cippic.ca) was granted an intervenor status (http://www.cippic.ca/en/node/129298) and was allowed to produce its own materials and experts (which it did) and examine Barry Logan (Canpire's principal) on his materials (which I am not sure has been done yet).

The interesting question is how Logan will be cross-examined on his affidavit.