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A court ruling in a long-running Canadian piracy case could convince internet providers not to fight for their subscribers’ privacy, a noted digital privacy expert says.
The Federal Court decision issued yesterday is the latest development in the dispute between ISP TekSavvy Solutions Inc. and U.S. copyright owner Voltage Pictures LLC that goes back to 2011. That’s when Voltage made court filings requesting that ISPs including TekSavvy, Bell Canada, Cogeco Cable, and Videoton hand over the information of users that allegedly downloaded a major motion picture illegally. One of the movies named by Voltage in its case was Oscar-winning film The Hurt Locker. The court decided that TekSavvy should disclose the names and addresses of its customers, provided there was court oversight of how Voltage communicated with those named. It also required Voltage to pay for TekSavvy’s costs involved.
In arguments over what those costs covered should be, TekSavvy argued the number is $346,480.68 and Voltage argued it should be $884. In the end, the court settled on costs totalling $21,557.50 that Voltage should pay to TekSavvy, a rate of about $11 per subscriber.
TekSavvy says it will continue to protect its customer’s privacy, only providing customer information to Voltage after all conditions of court orders have been met, it says. It also plans to inform those customers involved of next steps.
Agencies/Canadajournal
