By Ahmad Hathout
After five years of injunctions against a host of unlicensed content, Canada’s major broadcasters earlier this week filed a notice to the Federal Court ending their legal action against GoldTV – a case that spawned a new era of court authority over content pirates.
The broadcasters first got an interlocutory injunction against the website in the summer of 2019, which meant GoldTV was ordered by the court to stop broadcasting the unlicensed content of the major broadcasters – in this case, Rogers, Bell, Groupe TVA. That order was renewed in December 2022 for a period of two years.
“At this stage, and without prejudice to their right to seek similar orders, the Plaintiffs do not intend to further extend the duration of the Order of December 8, 2022,” according to the notice, filed on Monday. “The Defendants in this matter are in default of filing a Statement of Defence and have not otherwise appeared on the Court record. The Plaintiffs hereby file a Notice of Discontinuance in this action, on a without prejudice basis.”
The discontinuance comes after the broadcasters won a more potent defence against the broadcasting of unlicenced content: the authority to block that access at the network level, instead of having to rely on the defendants to stop it.
When GoldTV never completely ceased such activity after the order of the court, the applicant broadcasters, which are also internet service providers (ISPs), launched an unprecedented application requesting that the Federal Court force ISPs to block Canadians’ access to those websites.
After the Federal Court approved that request, large independent ISP TekSavvy appealed to the higher court, arguing that the order leaned too much in the direction of the copyright holders at the possible expense of free expression and that such an order could impact legitimate content. The Federal Court of Appeal upheld the lower court’s decision.
Then the broadcasters successfully litigated for dynamic site blocking, meaning they could block websites carrying certain content defined by the court as they pop up without the court’s explicit approval.
Today, broadcasters are continuously getting orders from the court to add content to the block list for all ISPs to target, which largely targets the valuable live sports segment.
Earlier this year, the broadcasters successfully obtained a going-forward blocking order that targets live sports for entire sports seasons.
