Two years ago, Canadian broadcasting giants Groupe TVA, Bell, and Rogers took the relatively small pirate IPTV service GoldTV to court.

What started as a simple copyright lawsuit soon became much more than that. With the pirate service failing to respond in court, the rightsholders requested an injunction to require local ISPs to block several related domain names.

This request met pushback from some ISPs but to no avail. Late 2018, Canada became the first North American country to require an ISP to block a pirate site or service .

Site Blocking Appeal

This blockade is still in place today but Internet provider TekSavvy has continued to object. The company filed an appeal at the Federal Court, which is ongoing. This raised the interest of several third parties, who all want to have their say in this important matter.

Earlier this month, the .CA domain registry and CIPPIC filed their interventions , arguing that blocking injunctions violate the Copyright Act and Telecoms Act.

On the other side of the spectrum, several copyright holders also asked the court to be heard. This request was approved under the condition that they would file a joint submission.

Copyright holders Intervene

TorrentFreak obtained a copy of the memorandum, submitted on behalf of the Premier League, Music Canada and the Publishers Association, among others. As expected, they back the blocking efforts.

In their submission, the copyright holders paint a grim picture of an Internet that’s full of illegal activity. This includes pirate sites and services that are nearly impossible to stop. Site blocking is one of the only options they have to counter the threat.

“Offenders operate under cloaks of anonymity, operating download and streaming sites and servers typically from outside Canada, flouting court orders, and undermining the rule of law. Voluntary takedown requests are ignored or deteriorate into a futile game of whack-a-mole,” the submission reads.

“Claimants have few if any direct means of enforcing court orders against such offenders. Blocking orders to be implemented by Internet service providers (‘ISPs’) are one of the only means available to disrupt these and other illegal business models.”

In isolation, these comments will do little to convince the court, but they represent just the introduction to a series of legal arguments. TekSavvy’s appeal challenges whether the court has jurisdiction over this matter, but the rightsholders believe that this critique is unwarranted.

The blocking order is in line with international treaty obligations, they counter. In addition, they don’t see the Copyright Act as a stumbling block either.

No Net Neutrality for ‘Unlawful’ Traffic

The same is true for net neutrality. Canada’s net neutrality policy doesn’t allow Internet providers to block domains or specific traffic types. However, the copyright holders note that this doesn’t apply to ‘unlawful’ traffic.

“Although the precise scope of net neutrality is not universally agreed upon or well-defined, it is clear that the international consensus is that it does not operate to
protect unlawful conduct.

“There is no basis to suggest that Canada has diverged in that respect from analogous jurisdictions,” the copyright holders write.

Copyright Trumps Freedom of Expression

Aside from the jurisdictional matters, TekSavvy and other interveners also raised concerns about freedom of expression, which is a human right. The copyright holders, for their part, counter that copyright is a human right as well.

They don’t believe that freedom of expression is at stake here, but even if it is, copyright would weigh stronger in this particular case.

“Even if free expression interests were engaged, which they are not, they would be outweighed in this case by the harm to expression from massive global piracy of creative industries.

“Courts around the world with strong freedom of speech rights have found that blocking orders do not violate those rights,” the intervention adds.

Based on these and other arguments the copyright holders ask the court to uphold the federal court ruling and keep the blocks in place. It is now up to the court to go over all submissions which will then lead to a final decision.

Whatever the outcome, the case is no longer just limited to the GoldTV service. It will determine if other ‘pirate’ sites and services can also be blocked in the future, which has the potential to impact millions of people.

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A copy of the intervening memorandum of fact and law, submitted on behalf of the copyright holders, is available here (pdf) .

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Rojadirecta is one of the oldest and most popular linking sites for sports streaming events.

The site, operated by the company Puerto 80 Projects, has been around for over a decade amassing a sizable audience. At the same time, however, it hasn’t been able to avoid legal trouble.

Copyright holders have repeatedly accused Rojadirecta of facilitating piracy by linking to unauthorized broadcasts. This has landed the site in court on more than one occasion. While most sites don’t put up a fight, Rojadirecta does.

This fighting spirit has paid off in the past. Among other victories, Rojadirecta managed to get its domain name back from the US Government after it was seized by the Department of Justice . In recent years, however, there have been setbacks too.

Site-Blocking Injunction

Last year, Danish anti-piracy group Rights Alliance , together with Spanish football league ‘La Liga,‘ obtained a site-blocking injunction against Rojadirecta . While the site wasn’t sued directly, it did intervene in the case, which initially failed. The court ordered ISP Telenor to block access to the sports streaming site.

Rojadirecta didn’t give up though and appealed the decision. Among other things, the company pointed out that the site contains links to legally available streams. It also showed that users must tick a box to indicate that submitted streams are not infringing any copyrights.

Despite this defense, the Court of Appeal upheld the lower court’s ruling. According to the appeal decision, it is likely that Rojadirecta violates the rights of the Spanish football league. As such, an injunction requiring Telenor to block the site is warranted.

Blocking Permissible Under EU Law

In its order, the Court cites jurisprudence from the European Court of Justice, including the Filmspeler case, which found that links to pirated content are seen as a ‘communication to the public.’

La Liga is pleased with the outcome. Melcior Soler, the league’s Audiovisual Director, says that the organization will continue to crack down on piracy around the world.

“This achievement encourages us to continue and reaffirms our position that piracy is a scourge not only for LaLiga but for all of football. LaLiga will keep investing in technology to fight piracy and defending the audiovisual rights of LaLiga and its clubs,” Soler says.

Other ISPs Will Follow The Blocking Order

In Denmark, ISPs have signed a voluntary agreement to follow blocking injunctions against competing ISPs . This means that, in addition to Telenor, other large providers will block Rojadirecta as well.

The Danish Rights Alliance sees the appeal decision as an important victory. According to director Maria Fredenslund, it enables rightsholders of live sports and TV content to request blocking injunctions as well.

“Practically, this means that there is now access to block services that offer illegal tv and live sports. This is a hugely important development, especially for broadcasters who at great expense pay for exclusive rights to sports content,” she says.

Fredenslund tells TorrentFreak that blockades against other websites offering live content are being considered, but there are no concrete plans yet.

Rojadirecta is disappointed with the outcome. However, it’s not a major setback for the site. The site’s Danish audience is relatively small and the site will continue to operate in countries where it remains freely accessible.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Last year Canada’s Federal Court approved the first pirate site blocking order in the country.

Following a complaint from major media companies Rogers, Bell and TVA, the Court ordered several major ISPs to block access to domains and IP-addresses of the pirate IPTV service GoldTV.

TekSavvy Appeals

There was little opposition from Internet providers, except for TekSavvy, which quickly announced that it would appeal the ruling . The blocking injunction threatens the open Internet to advance the interests of a few powerful media conglomerates, the company said.

Soon after, the landmark case also drew the interest of several third parties that all wanted to have their say. These include copyright holder groups, which are in favor of site blocking, as well as legal experts, civil rights activists, and the Canadian domain registry, which oppose the injunction.

All groups shared their arguments with the Federal Court, asking to be officially heard. This week, the Court granted this request, but with a twist.

Interveners Are Grouped Together

In a sixteen-page order ( pdf ), Justice David Stratas applauds his own Court for various procedural innovations, the current case included. The overall conclusion is that all six groups are allowed to intervene. However, some will have to work together to come up with a joint filing.

The Court has divided the interveners into three groups. The first includes rightsholder representatives such as Music Canada, IFPI, which already filed a joint submission, the Premier League, and representatives from the local movie industry. These are all in favor of site blocking .

The second group consists of the University of Ottowa’s legal clinic CIPPIC and the Canadian Internet Registration Authority. These are both against site blocking . That’s also true for the third ‘group,’ the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, whose opposition mainly revolves around freedom of expression.

“Allowing all six to intervene separately with separate counsel would result in lack of economy and duplication,” Justice Stratas notes, adding that the collaborations will “create useful synergies and a more compact submission.”

Court’s Advance Warnings and Critique

The order is also rather critical at times. For example, the initial submission from the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association is described as “problematic” and “rather vague” when it comes to international law.

Also, the order stresses that the intervening parties are not allowed to bring up new evidence or make statements without supporting evidence. Again, this comes with a sting, although it’s not clear who this is directed at.

“We enforce this strictly and for good reason. We have seen some try to dupe us by smuggling academic articles containing untested social science evidence into a book of authorities,” Justice Stratas writes.

“We have seen others try to slide submissions of mixed fact and law past us without any supporting facts in the evidentiary record,” he adds.

CIPPIC is Pleased With the Order

TorrentFreak reached out to several of the parties involved for a comment on the ruling. None of the copyright holder groups we contacted responded, but the counsel of CIPPIC informed us that the clinic is happy with the order.

“CIPPIC is pleased to have been afforded the opportunity to speak to the important legal issues raised in this case, which is the first of its kind in Canada,” CIPPIC counsel James Plotkin tells us.

“CIPPIC’s position is that, given the balance struck in the copyright act and the legislated role of intermediaries therein, site blocking orders are not the sort of remedy courts should grant, and certainly not on an interlocutory basis.”

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.