Voltage Pictures Thinks Canada's New Copyright Law Opens The Door For More Trolling

from the oh-canada dept

We are frankly puzzled by the approach that Voltage has taken. It seems contrary to the government’s intent with copyright reform, which was to discourage file sharing lawsuits against individuals, while still protecting copyright holders’ rights. The manner and the timing of this action also seems unusual given that the government recently created a roadmap for addressing file sharing and copyright infringement within its legislation. Its starting point is a notification system to subscribers to discourage infringement without immediate threats of lawsuits or disclosure of their personal information. That system is not yet finalized though. In light of these factors, Voltage’s actions seem odd to us.



It appears to us that a notice period is essential, especially in cases where large privacy disclosures may be involved. Without this notice, a customer could be the subject of a lawsuit and not even know about it. Surely this is in part why the government is seeking to enact such notice provisions in the policy.



At this point there are many unanswered questions. How does Voltage intend to proceed? How will the courts rule if customers should retain legal counsel? Under what conditions might the court order the disclosure of customer information? If Voltage is successful, how many more notices will Canadian ISPs receive? Is there a limit to what the court will allow?

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community. Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis. While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

You may recall Voltage Pictures not because it once made a movie that won the Oscar for Best Picture (), but because it was basically the first Hollywood studio to embrace copyright trolling. This is the company whose boss, Nicolas Chartier, once said that anyone who criticizes his company for copyright trolling is a moron and a thief (and that was in response to a rather friendly and polite email to Chartier suggesting that copyright trolling might hurt the company's reputation in the long run). While some of its earlier efforts to sue thousands of people at once (in once case it sued nearly 25,000 people in one shot) have run into difficulties, Voltage just won't quit . A quick check of the records shows that it's still been filing new lawsuits in the US (among smaller groups) and trying to make the case for proper joinder by using the "swarm" theory: that if all the IP addresses are a part of the same swarm, they're all connected in the legal issue (of course, they miss the fact that this would likely also mean that the total sum that could be collected would be split among all defendants).And, now, it appears, they've decided to try the same scheme up north. We had just noted that with Canada's new copyright law in place, it appeared that the copyright trolls were getting ready to pounce -- and that's now been confirmed. ISP TekSavvy initially released a blog post noting that Voltage Pictures was demanding a ton of information on many of its users . So far, the company is resisting, while notifying its users. It also noted that Voltage's strategy here is an odd one:The move by Voltage has a number of people confused . One of the reallyfeatures of Canada's new copyright laws is a cap on how much someone would have to pay at $5,000. That takes away a troll's ability to demand huge sums, while also limiting its ability to wave a big stick about them being liable for $150,000 in possible statutory awards (as they do in the US). Besides, as Teksavvy notes, the Canadian government was already worried about trolling when it passed the new law.In the end, it's unclear if Voltage is so wedded to the idea of copyright trolling that it simply doesn't understand what's going on in Canada. Either way, it makes one thing clear: I will now go out of my way to never watch a movie from Voltage. Who would support a company that sues its fans?

Filed Under: canada, copyright trolling

Companies: teksavvy, voltage pictures