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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.
People wouldn't have to pirate.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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.
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.