OTTAWA – The Federal Court of Canada has granted Bell Media, Groupe TVA, and Rogers Media an interim injunction against GoldTV.biz and GoldTV.ca, ordering GoldTV to disable its IPTV services pending a final decision on what is gearing up to be a test case for the big broadcasters efforts to require all Internet service providers (ISPs) to block unlicenced web sites they say are pirating their content.
In addition, the injunction forbids the as yet unknown individuals or entities operating the services, called John Doe 1 and John Doe 2 in the documents filed with the court, from transferring "access, control or custody over the assets and infrastructure" of the service to any third party, prohibits "developing, operating, maintaining, promoting, providing support, selling subscriptions, or authorizing anyone to sell subscriptions" to the service, or any other similar service, and "operating, accessing, maintaining, updating, hosting or promoting" the Internet domains involved, or any other domains or hosts promoting or providing similar services.
Of course, it also prohibits communicating the works in question – and it's a long list, from Big Bang Theory and South Park through high-profile sporting events like the FIFA World Cup – to the public by telecommunication, either on demand or by transmitting the broadcasts from the TV stations.
A key argument offered by the three plaintiffs is that GoldTV's operations cause irreparable harm to them. It's not a small problem. As of March 2019, the request says that GoldTV.ca was receiving over 53,000 monthly visits, approximately half of which were from Canada. At $15 per month, or $125 per year, that's a substantial chunk of change, and an even more substantial chunk of revenue that is not going to the legal providers of the content.
The request for the injunction puts it this way:
"The Defendants John Doe 1 and John Doe 2 engage in activities that lead to large scale commercial copyright infringement. Once users have authenticated access to the GoldTV Services, they can enjoy countless hours of live television and VOD content, all of which is outside of legitimate distribution channels and without authorization from the Plaintiffs. In fact, the specific purpose of the GoldTV Services is to provide users with convenient and unauthorized access to such content without having to subscribe to a legitimate distribution service, such as cable or satellite TV, or on-demand streaming services such as the Plaintiff Bell Media Inc.’s ‘Crave’ service, or the Plaintiff Rogers Media Inc.’s ‘Sportsnet NOW’ Service."
The function of the service is described thusly: it is subscription-based, accessed via a set-top box, or on a computer, laptop, smartphone, tablet, or smart TV using emulation software. Subscribers purchase from a reseller and must configure the set-top box or emulator according to provided instructions. Plaintiff investigations have shown that there are often several levels of reseller between the people who acquire and host the content and those who provide service and support, to make it more difficult to track the acquirers down. Experts from Rogers and Bell were unable to identify the operating entities, hence "John Doe".
Based on investigations, the request for the injunction says that the source of the service likely consists of individuals or groups who capture content from legitimate subscriptions and upload it to GoldTV servers. The resulting library is then illegally offered to GoldTV subscribers. Furthermore, the request notes that GoldTV.ca and GoldTV.biz, although they operate in a similar manner, may be run by different entities.
At the hearing in September, the plaintiffs are expected to request that the court require all ISPs to block GoldTV. While there should be no difficulty with the parent companies of Rogers Media, Bell Media, or Groupe TVA (Quebecor), it is unknown how smaller ISPs will react to such a ruling.
Currently, a link to GoldTV.ca does not resolve, and attempts to reach GoldTV.biz resulted in a security warning from our browser.
A hearing is scheduled for September 11 and 12. Stay tuned.
