By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – The Federal Court on Friday ordered broadcasters who had been restreaming Videotron’s channels to hotel rooms without consent to cease their activities and pay the Quebecor subsidiary $553,000 to compensate for damages.
Back in March 2022, the Federal Court determined who should be liable for copyright infringement. It ordered two of three companies – Technologies Konek inc. and Coopérative de câblodistribution Hill Valley – should be held liable for retransmitting Videotron’s TVA Sports channels to a number of hotel rooms, but left out another company called Libeo. The companies would buy a single signal from Videotron but retransmit that signal to multiple rooms at a profit, therefore taking business away from Videotron.
Videotron appealed the part of the decision that removed Libeo from liability. The Federal Court of Appeal ruled earlier this month that Libeo should be held liable because a cushy business relationship between the executives of the three companies made it unlikely that Libeo didn’t know about its role in the activity.
On Friday, the Federal Court finally ruled that all three must stop their activities and pay Videotron $533,000 in damages and also ordered the companies to stop carrying TVA sports.
“Mindful of the importance of copyright protection for safeguarding the work of artists and creators in the television industry, Videotron takes note of the Court’s condemnation of the practices of the defendant companies and one of their shareholders,” Videotron said in a statement. “They can no longer act with impunity.”
Videotron had asked for $8 million — $1,000 for each of the 8,000 programs broadcast on the TVA channels. The court said this amount “is grossly out of proportion” and far surpasses what Videotron suffered as a result of the infringing activity.
“Insofar as the retransmission of the TVA channels before February 3, 2021 is a reprehensible act that needs to be denounced and deterred, the statutory damages awarded in respect of the retransmission of the TVA Sports channels are more than sufficient to accomplish these purposes,” the decision said about the $533,000 it settled on.
Videotron also has an outstanding defamation lawsuit against the companies in Quebec Superior Court.
