CRTC has no jurisdiction over site-blocking request, big telecoms argue

BCE Inc., Quebecor Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc. are arguing in Federal Court that TekSavvy Solutions Inc. was wrong when it said the request by the large vertically-integrated telecoms to order a pirate “IPTV” site to be blocked is the domain of the CRTC. The three telecoms, which also have broadcasting divisions, are asking the court to issue an order mandating several internet service providers block the sites hosting the GoldTV service so that they cannot resurface. Earlier this week, TekSavvy said doing so would usurp the authority of the CRTC, arguing that to “avoid frustrating the purposes of 36 and 7 of the Telecommunications Act, this Court ought to decline the exercise of its discretion on this motion.” The three telecoms have now responded to that argument, maintaining that they are asking the court to act based on the Copyright Act, meaning the CRTC has no jurisdiction in this case. “The CRTC itself has already considered the subject-matter and remedy sought in the present dispute and unequivocally confirmed that it does not have jurisdiction,” the companies argued in a court filing. They said the CRTC weighed the issue when it was deciding on the FairPlay application -- in which a coalition of companies asked the regulator to set up a site-blocking regime to combat piracy -- and concluded “it does not possess jurisdiction over copyright infringement matters, including over the interpretation and application of the Copyright Act.” The plaintiffs pointed out that the CRTC itself also said that under the Telecommunications Act, the CRTC said it has only “an authorizing power and not a mandatory power,” meaning that “the power to mandate blocking must be found elsewhere.” In a separate filing in the case, Cogeco Inc. said that it was concerned that basing the blocking order on the IP address, which is one of the methods listed in the draft order, could lead to over blocking. “While DNS and URL blocking can effectively filter the Target Website with low probability of over-blocking, IP blocking is more problematic in that an IP address can be associated with many other domains and websites,” Cogeco said. The company said that “IP address blocking is not granular enough, when an IP address is shared, to allow for the Target Website, and only the Target Website, to be blocked.” The various parties in the case have been negotiating on that draft order since a judge rebuked the plaintiffs for not having worked harder to draft a motion agreeable to the ISPs they are asking the court to mandate block the websites.

CRTC has no jurisdiction over site-blocking request, big telecoms argue

Brief | September 26, 2019

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CRTC has no jurisdiction over site-blocking request, big telecoms argue

Brief | September 26, 2019

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