Bell granted World Cup site-blocking order; broadcasters seek NHL piracy blocking renewal

The emerging ad-hoc regime of site-blocking in Canada expanded again on Friday, as a Federal Court judge granted a new site-blocking order to BCE Inc., this time in order to block pirate streams of the upcoming World Cup soccer tournament. In a Friday Court order, Justice Richard Mosely granted Bell's request for blocking on its own ISPs, as well as those of Rogers Communications Inc., Cogeco Inc., Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corp., Shaw Communications Inc., Telus Corp., TekSavvy Solutions Inc., and Quebecor Inc.'s Videotron. Moseley cited previously-established site-blocking jurisdiction in Canada's first-ever site-blocking case, known as GoldTV. After initially filing for an injunction against a pair of John Doe streamers in September, Bell requested the blocking order, as injunctions against anonymous pirate streamers generally can't be enforced. Bell initially sought injunctions against a pair of streamers, one using the domains bingsport.xyz, papahd1.xyz and papahd.club with IP addresses and servers located in the British Virgin Islands and Ukraine, and a second streamer using servers that are based and hosted in Belize. The order allows Bell to appoint a single "agent" to identify pirate streaming during World Cup matches in November and December of this year, who will notify third party ISPs of IP addresses to be blocked. Under the order, the appointed agent can identify IP addresses to be blocked if the IP address is either streaming games during a specified "match window", or (during a "pre-monitoring period") is identified as "communicat to the public by telecommunication without the plaintiffs’ authorization a station on which" a World Cup match will be broadcast. The extent and duration of the "pre-monitoring term" is defined in a confidential portion of the court order. The order also allows for third-party ISPs to "correct or investigate potential over-blocking" provided that the third-party ISP gives notice to Bell, and the blocking order is set to sunset after the conclusion of the World Cup. Earlier this month in a separate site-blocking case – in which Bell, Rogers, and Quebecor sought and were ultimately granted a so-called 'dynamic' blocking order for the 2021-2022 NHL season – the trio filed for a renewal of the order for the upcoming season. The dynamic order in that case orders ISPs to block a rolling list of IP addresses in real-time, as they are identified by the broadcasters as showing pirated NHL games while those games are being broadcast throughout the season. — Reporting by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca and editing by Jenna Cocullo at jcocullo@thewirereport.ca .

Bell granted World Cup site-blocking order; broadcasters seek NHL piracy blocking renewal

Broadcast | October 24, 2022

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Bell granted World Cup site-blocking order; broadcasters seek NHL piracy blocking renewal

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