Voltage asks court to force Rogers to I.D. file-sharing John Doe

Voltage Pictures LLC is asking federal court to order Rogers Communications Inc. to disclose the identity of an individual who infringed its copyright of five movies. In a motion of disclosure filed in court Wednesday, Voltage said the notice-and-notice provisions of the Copyright Act include “a mechanism for identifying anonymous copyright infringers, such as John Doe no. 1,” and asked the court to compel Rogers to disclose his identity. “Absent this identifying information, which is known only to Rogers, the unlawful distributing of the Voltage Parties’ motion pictures will continue unabated, and the Voltage Parties will be left without recourse to protect their rights,” it said. The court was scheduled to hear the motion on May 31 in Toronto, but that appearance has now been rescheduled for an undetermined date. Voltage said the first step in its reverse-class-action process is the identification of John Doe No. 1, “who will represent the proposed respondent class of infringers.” That individual offered five movies owned by Voltage for distribution over the Internet, according to Voltage’s court documents. Voltage said it brought the application, which is “the ‘first reverse class action’ in Canadian history for copyright infringement, to seek fair and equitable compensation for mass infringement of their copyrights in their motion pictures.” When it was first launched, legal experts pointed out potential issues with the strategy, and questioned whether the court will certify the class action. Voltage previously attempted to combat filesharing of its content in Canada in a court case involving TekSavvy Solutions Inc. On Friday, Tamir Israel, a lawyer with the Samuel-Gloshko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic — which intervened in the TekSavvy-Voltage case — said he hoped the court would impose some of the same safeguards as in that case in the latest proceeding. That includes, for instance, requiring the court to pre-approve any demand letters that are sent out. He said that this could be the first case in which a company is asking the court to order the disclosure of someone's identity in a copyright infringement case since the notice-and-notice regime was put in place. “It’s definitely the first one to raise these types of concerns,” he said, citing issues like whether a reverse class action is the right mechanism for this type of case, and questions about whether the individuals involved actually downloaded the entire file. Israel said it’s difficult to predict whether the court will order Rogers to disclose. “The TekSavvy case was the first of its kind and this is kind of the same, but a little bit different,” he said. “If nobody challenges it and nobody presents the other side, they may well .” Another issue in the case is set to be a dispute over who is responsible for the costs of identifying the John Does. Rogers isn’t entitled to any compensation to such disclosure, Voltage said. “The new statutory Notice-and-Notice regime has altered the common-law test for disclosure … and has, we submit, shifted the cost burden for identifying anonymous infringers to the ISPs. To our knowledge, this is the first case to argue this aspect of the Notice-and-Notice regime,” Voltage said. In emails between the two companies submitted as affidavits as part of the case, Rogers staff said the company “normally charges $100 an hour … to respond to these disclosure orders.” Rogers did not respond to a request for comment Friday. — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Charelle Evelyn at cevelyn@thewirereport.ca

Voltage asks court to force Rogers to I.D. file-sharing John Doe

Broadcast | May 27, 2016

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Voltage asks court to force Rogers to I.D. file-sharing John Doe

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