Canadian Court Tries to Dampen Copyright Trolls In P2P Lawsuits

An anonymous reader writes "The Canadian federal court has released its much-anticipated decision in Voltage Pictures v. Does, a case involving demands that TekSavvy, a leading independent ISP, disclose the identities of roughly 2,000 subscribers alleged to have downloaded movies without authorization. Michael Geist notes that the court was sensitive to the copyright troll concern, noting that 'given the issues in play the answers require a delicate balancing of privacy rights versus the rights of copyright holders. This is especially so in the context of modern day technology and users of the Internet.' In order to strike the balance, the court required full court approval of the content of any demand letters and bold warnings that no court had found a recipient liable for any damages."

Comments

Re:Improper purposes (:-))

[dakohli]

Well stated, from Voltage's point of view

But of course, behaving like a "good-faith plaintiff" does not fit in with the revenue model. The whole original plan was to try and scare people into settling without going into a courtroom. Because, as soon as you get in the courtroom, there are Judges and sometimes Juries who you can never completely control. Costs also increase. So, you pick a test case you think you can win, prosecute the shit out of that one, even though you know you'll never get any real money, the judgement is the prise. Keep it really high, so that when you get your next batch of infringers you can threaten them with complete destruction. That way, more people will be inclined to settle without you every having to go back in the Courtroom again.

Of course, the Canadian rules have broken this model. Now, they have to pay for the list of names. They will have to pay to bring someone in to actually sue to make the point, and determine how the Canadian Courts are actually going to award damages. With a max infringement level of $5000, this is going to be close. Even if they are awarded some court costs, there will be few big payoff days. I suspect they are hoping that one of the secret treaties (TPP maybe) will force the Canadians to change the rules and come back to a more US style of play, and actions like this will be more placeholders to "prove" that litigation like this is truly important.