Court orders Canadian ISP to reveal customers who downloaded movies

[Redfairen]

Source: The Globe and Mail

In a pivotal courtroom battle over unauthorized downloading in Canada, a Federal Court has handed down a major ruling – one that has all sides claiming victory.

Canadian Internet service provider TekSavvy Solutions Inc. has been ordered to hand over a list of names and addresses of its customers suspected of illegally downloading movies, in a landmark Federal Court decision.

The ruling is sure to grab the attention of millions of Canadian who engage in what is known as “peer-to-peer” file sharing on the Internet, which allows users to share copyrighted movies or other content for free. But its ultimate impact on anyone who illegally downloads material in Canada is harder to predict.

In a decision dated Feb. 20, the Federal Court of Canada sided with Voltage Pictures LLC, producer of the Oscar-nominated film The Hurt Locker and ordered TekSavvy to produce a list of about 2,000 names and address of customers associated with Internet Protocol (IP) addresses the film company alleges illegally downloaded its movies.



Read more: http://m.theglobeandmail.com/technology/tech-news/court-tells-teksavvy-to-reveal-customers-who-illegally-download-movies/article17025513/?service=mobile

[davidpdx]

1. Yikes

Not in Canada, but I hate to hear that they are now going after people outside the US. It's only a matter of time.

[defacto7]

2. I would have to see the outcome

of the investigation before I'd believe they have 2,000 IP addresses associated with individual customers who have downloaded their movies via peer to peer. It's a bluff I do believe.

Peer to peer is a little bit "disjointed" to say the least. To prove certain IP addresses have been used by an individual to download a complete file, the studio would need other information not associated with that IP to prove it, I.E. a seller with data storage who holds complete files that they distributed for remuneration that can be traced and who has made an agreement with the studio to give them those IP addresses probably to evade their own prosecution. Peer to peer could mean a boat load of different anonymous sources all with just a small piece of data uploaded to who knows how many other IP addresses.

But the idea usually is to fake an allegation to get a settlement and make a public statement. It in itself is unethical and a fraud that more than not ends up getting settlements from innocent people. But they do get to scare people in the process and that's what they're really after. The threat of a law suit is always more profitable than proving the allegation especially where media is concerned.

They want the names and addresses of customers with particular IP addresses. That could be you, that could be me, even though we may never have participated is peer to peer. What do you call that?

[Joe Shlabotnik]

4. +1

Atm my internet connection is unsecured. Sure it could get abused by somebody parked in front of my house downloading tons of movies. But in my neighborhood that's pretty unlikely. What ALL people should do is leave their internet access point unsecured and then challenge accusers to prove that they have in fact used it. It'd also be a step towards to having free internet everywhere. Unfortunately, I'm probably the only anarcho-collectivist on the block though.

[blkmusclmachine]

3. Oh, Canada...

[Downwinder]

5. These are records that an ISP collects?

More like spook records, apply to NSA.

[penultimate]

6. The ISP doesn't have a list of files customers downloaded

The people trying to get the records are the ones with the IPs who connected to their systems participating in serving the files. They want the ISP to correlate those IPs to actual people so they can sue them or whatever.

[VScott]

9. Delete

Responded to wrong post.

[Thor_MN]

7. So how did Voltage Pictures obtain the IP addresses it is seeking the contact info for?

Were they seeding their own movie on a P2P network? If so, how can they claim illegal consumption of internet content they themselves were providing? I've heard "bait car" analogies, which are totally flawed, as stealing a car is illegal, while using the internet is not.

How would knowingly placing your content for free downloading be different than opening it to the public domain?

[VScott]

10. They hired an outside agency

There are probably dozens, here's just one as an example...

http://www.copyrighthandler.com/store/Copyright-Infringement-Tracking-Services.html

ASCAP and the MPAA also utilize 'takedown' services to track, identify and give notice to offenders.

Obtaining an IP can be as simple as requesting (or sharing), a particular piece of copyrighted material via a Bittorrent client and logging the number of peers in the swarm.

Agencies that provide anti-piracy services utilize more sophisticated and dedicated software to perform that function.