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Cable Giants Step Up Piracy Battle By Interrogating Montreal Software Developer (www.cbc.ca)
New submitter wierzpio writes: In more news about TVAddons, Canadian cable companies used a civil search warrant to visit the owner and developer of TVAddons, a library of hundreds of apps known as add-ons that allow people easy access to pirated movies, TV shows, and live TV. According to Adam Lackman, founder of TVAddons and defendant in the copyright lawsuit launched by the television giants, "The whole experience was horrifying. It felt like the kind of thing you would have expected to have happened in the Soviet Union." During the 16 hour-long visit, he was interrogated, denied the right not to answer the questions, and denied the right to consult his answers with his lawyer, who was present. His personal possessions were seized. Adam is fighting back (link to Indiegogo fundraising page) and already the judge declared the search warrant "null and void." "I am of the view that its true purpose was to destroy the livelihood of the defendant, deny him the financial resources to finance a defense to the claim made against him," the judge wrote. "The defendant has demonstrated that he has an arguable case that he is not violating the [Copyright] Act," the judge continued, adding that by the plaintiffs' own estimate, only about one per cent of Lackman's add-ons were allegedly used to pirate content. Lackman's belongings still haven't been returned, and he can't acess the TVAddons website or its social media accounts, which were also seized. "Bell, Rogers and Videotron has appealed the court decision and a Federal Court of Appeal judge has ruled that until the appeal can be hard, Lackman will get nothing back," reports cbc.ca.
...disturbing.
Like... what the hell is going on in Canada? And how long are Canadians going to stand around before they burn the place down and put this thing called a reasonable "Bill of Rights" into their constitution.
Because it's pure insanity to allow a party to directly inspect a defendant's property (as opposed to having the police / third-party investigator do it).
For every attack people put on the USA (and many are warranted), I look over at the UK and Canada and watch back in horror as their civil liberties are worth less than the paper they aren't printed on.
I'm glad I live in Germany, where we have reasonable laws and don't allow crap like this. You Canadians and Americans are so smug, but your laws are a joke. This is clearly an unreasonable way to interrogate someone. Enjoy your copyright gestapo.
Cancelled.
I'll never deal with Rogers, Bell or Videotron again. I hope everyone who has an option of an independent provider in Canada will switch quickly away from them.
People wouldn't have to pirate.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I live in Japan. This doesn't affect me at all. Why should I care about this at all? Why can't Slashdot stick to posting stories that actually affect more than an extremely tiny percentage of people?
The cable companies' lawyers went WAYYYY beyond any search warrant, clearly violated his legal rights by refusing him access to legal counsel while they were questioning them, and somehow they still can keep possession of what amounts to ill-gotten evidence (seeing as the warrant was fairly narrow in what it was allowing them to seize) because they have an ongoing appeal?
In a properly running judicial system, there would currently be disbarment hearings against the lawyers in question and significant financial penalties against Rogers and Videotron.
I can tell you this, civil proceedings or not, anyone who wouldn't let me get my lawyer in the room while they were interrogating me would find themselves faced with this simple statement from me "Either my lawyer is a present, or I leave this room, and if you try to detain me, I'll be filing criminal charges for unlawful confinement", because nowhere in the Common Law world am I aware of lawyers in a civil case being allowed to detain anyone for questioning.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I have never heard of a civil search warrant?? At least the judge seems to have stated, clearly and unequivocally, a sane opinion of the true intent of the search. I don't know what recourse he has available under Canadian law but hopefully some justice will prevail. It clearly hasn't so far.
The summary of events doesn't make sense. It seems to imply representatives from the cable companies visited Adam, questioned him for 16 hours and took his stuff. And it seems to imply the police were not involved, but his lawyer was. None of that makes sense.
If the police were not there the cable companies would have no right or ability to hold Adam, make him answer questions or take his equipment. If the police were there and no criminal charges were presented then he should have been able to kick them out or cancel the meeting at any time via his lawyer.
There are some pretty big red flags and gaps in this story and it's not passing the smell test.
was interrogated, denied the right not to answer the questions, and denied the right to consult his answers with his lawyer, who was present.
Not a Canadian here, and I know there are differences between the legal system up there and ours down here, but I thought a lot of basic things like "right to a lawyer" were similar to the US. Is the above not an "I win" card for the guy?
In the US if you are denied due process, the whole case against you can be (and often is) thrown out for that reason alone. The reasoning is that you don't want the state to be able to ignore due process without repercussions, or those rights become effectively meaningless.
Stop framing copyright infringement as piracy.
denied the right not to answer the questions
I can see how they might physically deny him the right/ability to call a lawyer, but how was the above achieved?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Guy that supplies burglar tools surprised when people use them to burgle.
Your ISP already knows all your URL visits. In nearest future it will start identifying content and paying content owners their share proportional to number of views.
Everybody will pay flat ISP fee.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I can either get Viedeotron cable or a better company such as Teksavvy which resells me Videotron or I can get Bell DSL or a better company like Teksavvy that resells me Bell. Needless to say I have been w/ Teksavvy ever since I could but whereever I have lived all they could do is resell one of the options you mention.
Very sad indeed.
"Well, that sounds like a really good deal. But I think I have a better one.
How about I give you the finger (shows finger), and you give me my goddamn phone call?
You can't scare me with this gestapo shit, I know my rights."
[cable company agents gag the computer nerd and shove a tracking device into his bellybutton*]
Really? You HAVE to be trolling us.
Nothing out of the norm is happening in Canada generally.
In this very specific case, non-governmental persons walked all over the bounds set by law, precedent and custom in enacting a Pillar order. Sections 7 through 14 I suspect. Not, and I stress this, not the government walking all over Mr. Lackman.
Not a lawyer, but I can make reasonable guesses as to the outcome.
What will likely happen is on appeal, the corporations will lose (heck, even on the most basic one of the timeframe allowed). That will likely toss out all evidence gained by the corporations. It may get the corporations or their lawyers sanctioned by the judge or judges in question. It will likely open them up for a counter lawsuit by Mr. Lackman. I suspect the corporations will attempt to settle at that point, as a definitive ruling in favour of Mr. Lackman would certainly be a hit to their stock valuation.
The fact you chose to use the term "Bill of Rights", I think, says a lot about you. We have something called the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We tend to stick to it. It's why Khadr got the payment he did. And no, not because Trudeau is spineless or such (or regardless of such, if you lean that way instead), that was because the Supreme Court of Canada sat down with their copy of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and decided that by leaving Khadr, a Canadian citizen, in an American military prison and not doing fuck all to repatriate him (he could have stayed in one of our prisons you know, we _do_ have them, and they're not exactly the Tokyo Hilton too, posh-wise) was a basic violation of his rights as a Canadian citizen. Something the government at the time decided to do.
As they say, the wheels grind slowly.
But hey, you do your opinions, I'll do mine. Also, to help our your growth as an internet pundit, here's some free education on a foreign body's legal system: Canada's "Bill o' Rightlies"
Do civil warrants allow such de facto imprisonment? Court officials are not police and any attempt to stop him is deprivation of liberty or kidnapping. His lawyer should have called the police.
I would hope that there is at least an audio recording if not some video. I would think there would be one for those serving the warrant and doing the interrogating. They should have to share that recording with the defence too. Unfortunately it would be in the wrong hands. The judge should make the full unedited recording available to all parties.
Every last one of the people who ordered and authorized this, from the top down, needs to rot in jail for this. No matter what complete bullshit they will spout, pretending they had no idea, that no one ordered it, that it was just some rogue agents, that they were just following orders and that no one knows just who ordered it or how or when. Doesn't matter.
These criminals need to be permanently removed from our population, and their loved ones deported to Guantanamo for crimes against humanity. I've had enough of this wishy-washy "no one is really at fault here and we take these issues very seriously" we're likely to get spat on with: It's high time we took the monsters out back and applied the rule of law like they deserve.
Canada's far right has learned from the US how to leverage rural communities to get away with this stuff. The interests of city folk and rural folk often don't align. E.g. a rural person with a network connection measured in tens of kilobits probably doesn't care if some city guy gets in trouble for downloading movies. The effect is more pronounced in the US because our political system gives rural voters many, many times more voting power in an effort to be 'fair'.
I'd like to find some way to bridge that gap but I'm not sure anyone can. The lifestyles are too different.
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Strip the cable companies lawyers of their right to practice law nationwide and permanently. It's the only thing that will deter this type of activity. The companies could take several million dollars in fines and write it off as an anti-piracy expense. But other lawyers who see their colleagues stripped of the right to practice, are not going to go along with it in the future. Punish the lawyers severely and then they will tell their clients what they will and won't do. No client is going to be able to pay you enough to cover what you can earn during your entire legal career.
Power begets corruption. Unfortunately, the only way to bring these powers to heel to to simply stop giving them money. Double-Unfortunately for all of us, the entirety of western civilization has been brought up to believe that in order to have any kind of fun, one must pay somebody to provide it for them, and not to pay is stealing, and stealing is a crime. This has been pounded into our collective psyche for so long even the seniors among us are beginning to believe it. As we slowly wean ourselves off of this addiction, or find ways to entertain ourselves without paying for it, our keepers will sell our protections and laws in return for their own entertainment, and this behavior will only intensify.
It's not a politics problem, and it's not a criminal problem... it's a CULTURE problem... none of our culture belongs to us anymore, and we risk being ruined if we try to make our own... Judging by recent history, politic, and culture, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
The public lands and parks we pay to use are full of kids consuming media on licensed (not owned) pocket computers, discussing somebody else's great ideas and inventions over somebody else's (monitored) communication system, and racing each other to the bank to buy somebody else's gadgets. They are sadly not allowed to come up with anything of their own.. for fear of trampling somebody else's copyrights and/or patents, which invites this very perversion of justice.
This behavior will continue for the foreseeable future.
The only way to win is not to play. Turn off your TV, stop watching movies, ditch the cellphone, and create a new kind culture... without the price tag and gatekeeper. It's the only way.
Otherwise, we're fucked, and will have to pay for the privilege.
Boy. That rant felt good.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
Sorry to break it to you, but you're wrong. Couldn't be wronger.
He who has the gold, rules.
> Nothing out of the norm is happening in Canada generally.
Except we've been reading a LOT of articles about Canadian police trampling over citizen's rights (as if they never swore an oath to uphold them)
.
Better yet just switch to piracy.
right. We're just shy of places like Saudi Arabia and there's folks working hard to get us there. Our VP is one of them...
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as you'll get a contempt charge and use that against the Anton Piller order to get a lawyer.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
And go on a kill spree at their corporate offices everyone even the courts will wonder why.
I personally hope he does.
Okay,
Contempt of court eh?
How about the guy just kills everyone who is complicit in conducting such a stupid interrogation. Wow, so many people died, because we over stepped, I guess we better not do that next time? no, let's crank those screws down tighter, because "good" guys died.
This is the only viable answer to me. These people aren't just "doing their jobs" any more. You have to see this clearly, and if you are asked to do something you know is stupid, quit before you end up meeting someone crazy enough to fucking kill you over it. Of course, this is just bullshit, everyone is a puss that would never say no to law enforcement, lawyers or anything. just mere internet-tough-guy bullshit.
Seriously though, he should have called shinanigans and said, fine, "We'll see about that contempt of court you're threatening me with, but furst, you can suck my fucking cock"
No constitution, not land of the free
This took place in Quebec, a place where you can not have english road signs etc. Rules are a bit different and one sided there and anytime the federal government says something about it, they all start to froth and try and get the separatist party back with super powers. See it as Canada's wart.
A man would have killed these intruders on the spot, no matter the costs.
With your shield or on it.
Well played - the "alt-right" tribalist clueless troll persona joke is very believable.
This is a nice attention alert to all the white hats, script kiddies, hackers, and delinquents. This appears like a David and Goliath situation. Guess who the general populace sides with?
What old farts in their golden chairs don't realize is that their business sits on a large solid foundation of social tolerance.
You pissing off even a small part of society, you start getting equipment and infrastructure stolen, vandalized, or damaged. You have trouble recruiting and keeping the best and brightest. You get more hackings, and people start "stealing" your service more.
Why not? You lost their respect. It's not laws and rules that keep people honest, it's respect and tolerance.
and you the people are being taken to the cleaners
losers and suckers
No i didn't read TFA, but who did the searching? The cops or some weird tv guys in blue windbreakers? Since when can cable people execute such a warrant. I would have laughed them out of my house and kicked 'em in the ass on the way out.
The average person only thinks of escrow services in relation to financial transactions, but they do have more uses. Canada has escrow firms too.
A case like this where there is dispute over who owns the property seems tailor made for putting the property into escrow so that neither party can access it until the legal ownership is settled.
Everyone here is clueless saying it wouldn't happen in USA.
IT COULD, and it's in the law. We have a law that permits movie theater employees to detain and interrogate people if they suspect them (say they used a cell phone to snap a selfie), and are immune from all lawsuits if they do so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Entertainment_and_Copyright_Act
The proper recompense on appeal is an award of 100% the value of the companies that perpetrated this shit to the victim, plus a criminal probe/investigation of the personal finances/relationships of the judge that signed off on the original warrant, as well as the government officials that executed it. The only way to deal with this kind of Gestapo tactic is brutal consequences. Just like the Gawker case in the US, it is high time that these companies grossly violating the laws and basic human rights be liquefied or handed over to their victims. Stockholders and CEOs will pay a lot closer attention and be a lot less aggressive if they know they can lose it all with this kind of shit.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
The second paragraph of the story details how a Canadian judge threw out the search because it greatly violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The victim will likely get his stuff back after the corporate appeal of the judge's ruling fails.
Far stronger property protections in Canada than in the U.S. In fact, American civil forfeiture laws are very scary, and about to get scarier...
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/sessions-forfeiture-justice-department-civil/534168/
But, you know, America-Number-One-Best-Country-Most-Free blah blah blah *puke*!
https://www.cato.org/human-freedom-index
"The top 10 jurisdictions in order were Hong Kong, Switzerland, New Zealand, Ireland, Denmark, Australia (6), Canada (6), the United Kingdom (6), Finland (9), and the Netherlands (10). The United States is ranked in 23rd place. Other countries rank as follows: Germany (13), Chile (29), France (31), Japan (32), Singapore (40), South Africa (74), Brazil (82), India (87), Russia (115), Nigeria (140), China (141), Saudi Arabia (144), Zimbabwe (148), Venezuela (154), and Iran (157)."
Canada is tied for 6th as most free, USA is way down at 23rd...
The proper recompense on appeal is an award of 100% the value of the companies that perpetrated this shit to the victim, plus a criminal probe/investigation of the personal finances/relationships of the judge that signed off on the original warrant, as well as the government officials that executed it.
So you want to punish the shareholders of the corporation and not the employees who made this decision? Oh, and all the other employees who are now out a job. And, of course, destabilize the entire concept of publicly owned corporations.
I'm for him getting over-fairly compensated. I'm for punitive measures against the people who did this both on the corporate and public level as a discouragement for others to follow that path. I am not for screwing over plenty of people innocent of this crime even if it will also get the few guilty.
LITTLE GIRL: But which cookie will you eat FIRST? C. MONSTER: Me think you have misconception of cookie-eating process.
While I don't condone anything (allegedly) illegal on the part of the developer, if any such thing has even been done, I don't care if he is as guilty as they come, this behavior is totally unacceptable.
The seizure is theft. If I walked into the "cable giants" building and started "seizing" stuff, I'd be off to jail. And that is where these people need to go. Anyone involved. Any lawyers should be disbarred and jailed. The CEO is responsible for everything, and should also be jailed. You or I would be. And the "theft" is very minor compared to the violation of rights.
The Canadian government (using taxpayers money) just paid off an alleged terrorist because his rights were violated.
The gross violation of this developer's rights are an abomination, and criminal, and these companies should pay up, and as I said above, there should be jail time for those involved/responsible.
They need to be slapped down and hard. These industries are fond of trying to make an example out of people, and they should be treated the same.
This kind of behavior flows down from the C- level and the board of directors, and yes, in the end the shareholders should take it in the pants, as they are responsible for holding the company accountable. They are the owners after all.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like