Set-top box retailer involved in software development, BDUs claim

A trio of telecom companies are doubling down on their assertion that preloaded set-top box retailers are complicit in TV piracy, according to new court documents filed in their ongoing fight to permanently end the sale of the devices loaded with software they say allows users to access their content for free. In their July 15 reply to a statement of defence and counterclaim filed by one of the retailers, lawyers for BCE Inc., Rogers Communications Inc. and Quebecor Inc.’s Videotron not only rejected the defendant’s claim they have no connection to the software highlighted but they “further plead” that Vincent Wesley, of MTLFreeTV.Com and WatchNSaveNow Inc., has developed additional applications, “which he preinstalls and pre-configures in the Pre-loaded Set-top boxes that he sells.” On June 1, a federal court judge issued a temporary ban on the sale of set-top boxes preloaded with software that allows users to access pay-TV programming for free. Wesley’s statement of defence and counterclaim, filed June 17, argues that “Set-top boxes allow users to execute and use any application they wish to, irrespective of those loaded or not on the Set-top boxes.” The statement also said that the defendant — of which he was originally one of five, but 11 more have since been added since the June 1 order — has been “selling their products for several years before the present proceedings were initiated by the Plaintiffs” and that “said products are sold with software which is not developed, produced, serviced or maintained in any way by the Defendants.” In their reply, the telecom companies identified two applications they say Wesley developed that “have substantially the same functionality” as Kodi, an open-source media player that could access online streaming websites; two applications that “allow user to locate, download and install ‘Infringing Add-ons,’” as defined in the original statement of claim; and one application “which allows users to locate, download and install the ‘Showbox’ application, a media player software that could access online streaming websites and permanently download content. The set-top boxes are “no different from any other legal piece of hardware such as a personal computer or an iPad onto which various software can be downloaded, installed and used,” said the statement of defence and counterclaim from Wesley, who has also filed an appeal of the injunction. “The mere act of pre-loading third party applications or software does not constitute an act of ‘communication to the public’ or ‘making available’ pursuant to the Copyright Act,” the statement said. It added that these set-top boxes are also not responsible for any drop in subscriptions to the broadcast distributors' services. “Defendants readily believe that consumer demand for the Set-top Boxes emanate from users not interested in obtaining subscriptions from the Plaintiffs at all,” the statement said. “The Defendants respectfully submit that the consistent rise in prices of Plaintiffs’ services is the cause for the Plaintiffs’ alleged drop in subscriptions.” One of the newer defendants, the owner of Markham, Ont.’s Ohm Computers, filed a statement of defence on July 8, denying any allegations made in the telecom companies' statement of claim. “The said Defendant states it is engaged in the business of selling computer related software and hardware products and it did not have the knowledge and the need to check the authenticity of the items that come for sale in its store,” the statement said, adding that they require “strict proof of every fact from the Plaintiffs.” — With reporting by Charelle Evelyn at cevelyn@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Set-top box retailer involved in software development, BDUs claim

Broadcast | July 22, 2016

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Set-top box retailer involved in software development, BDUs claim

Broadcast | July 22, 2016

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