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Clark said he has sent nearly 300,000 such notices since early 2017.

“You’ve got massive infringement,” he said.

If we send you a notice telling you that your internet account is being used illegally and you do nothing to stop it from being used illegally, then you become primarily liable Ken Clark, lawyer, Aird & Berlis

Some account holders may not be responsible for the infringement — perhaps a teen downloaded a movie unbeknownst to their parents or a neighbour illegally used an open Wi-Fi network — and others may not understand that BitTorrent automatically distributes downloaded files.

But Clark argued neither scenario matters from a legal standpoint.

“If we send you a notice telling you that your internet account is being used illegally and you do nothing to stop it from being used illegally, then you become primarily liable,” he said. “Ignorance is no excuse.”

The client then files a statement of claim against “Doe #1 et al.” — a type of lawsuit where the plaintiff doesn’t know the identity of the defendants. It can add additional Does at any time.

His clients, however, need to identify suspected infringers in order to actually sue them. To do so, they apply to the court for Norwich orders, which compel ISPs to disclose the name and address associated with an IP address.

Canadian courts have ordered ISPs to hand over this information in a series of decisions since 2011. The ISPs have complied, but argue they shouldn’t have to hand the information over for free given the labour involved.

In July 2016, the federal court ruled Rogers should be able to recoup its costs for finding the information, which takes a qualified person about 30 minutes at a cost of $100 per hour. Most internet accounts have changing IP addresses, so finding a particular user is not necessarily a simple process.