Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Piracy Canada The Courts The Internet

Federal Court Approves First 'Pirate' Site Blockade In Canada (torrentfreak.com) 24

A group of major broadcasters and telco giants, including Rogers and Bell, have obtained the first Canadian pirate site blocking order. TorrentFreak reports: Last year, a coalition of copyright holders and major players in the telco industry asked the Canadian Government to institute a national pirate site blocking scheme. The Fairplay coalition argued that such measures would be required to effectively curb online piracy. Canada's telco regulator CRTC reviewed the request but eventually denied the application, noting that it lacks jurisdiction. The driving forces behind the request, Bell, Rogers, and Groupe TVA, were not prepared to let the blocking idea slip away, however. A few months ago the companies filed a lawsuit against the operators of a 'pirate' IPTV service GoldTV.ca. The companies argued that the service provides access to their TV content without licenses or authorization. Among other things, the rightsholders requested an interim injunction to stop the operators, who remain unidentified, from continuing to offer the allegedly-infringing IPTV service. This was granted, but despite the order, some of the infrastructures remained available.

This resulted in a follow-up request from the media giants, which became the setup for the first-ever pirate site blocking order in Canada. Specifically, the companies requested an interlocutory injunction order that would require several Canadian ISPs to block GoldTV domain names and IP-addresses. Late last week this request was granted by a Federal Court in Ontario. An order, issued by Judge Patrick Gleeson, requires most of Canada's largest ISPs, including Cogeco, Rogers, Bell, Eastlink and, TekSavvy, to start blocking their customers' access to GoldTV within 15 days. The order is unique in North America and relies heavily on UK jurisprudence, can be extended with new IP-addresses and domain names, if those provide access to the same IPTV service. The court doesn't prescribe a specific blocking method but mentions DNS and IP-address blocking as options.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Federal Court Approves First 'Pirate' Site Blockade In Canada

Comments Filter:
  • and get my content from there. If that fails, I may go to hahaGoldTV and wecandothisGOLDTV just along with thisischeapGOLDTV.

    Seems kind of silly but then so is pretty much our entire set of copyright laws.

    • I had not heard of goldtv... but thanks recording industry...
    • I can understand that giant media corporations want even more money. They will always have little of your dollars. They will always need a little more. That's why I don't give a damn about cable and just download movies using the showbox.zone [showbox.zone] app. Yes, there won't be a large TV screen like in my living room but I can see all the latest movies in any free time.
  • I wish that We The People could do this same thing. Shove through legislation that advances our interests while harming those we don't care about. I suppose it's a pipe dream. Still, it sure would be awesome, don't you think? But today we're in a Chinese-style system where government is just something that happens to you, without your input.
  • by alexo ( 9335 ) on Friday November 22, 2019 @09:10PM (#59444910) Journal

    Michael Geist posted an in-depth analysis of the ruling on his blog [michaelgeist.ca].

  • So this is a decision by the "lowest court in the land". I am relatively sure that someone will appeal it to a higher court such as the Ontario Court (Provincial Division).

  • Bell is behind the push for all sorts of draconian legislation, including an attempt to block VPNs

    http://www.michaelgeist.ca/201... [michaelgeist.ca]

    If you do business with Bell, you are actively working against a free and open internet.

  • Note that this only applies to GoldTV.ca.
    It has no jurisdiction on sites that are not in the ".ca" domain.
    In other words, no effect.

"If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong." -- Norm Schryer

Working...