Hollywood suing Canadians over illegal downloads
Posted Apr 17, 2019 09:38:00 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Some Canadians are starting to find something unwanted in the mail, as Hollywood is suing people for downloading copyrighted content.
According to McInnes Cooper, studios are using a legal procedure called a “reverse class action” to consolidate hundreds of lawsuits into a handful of lawsuits.
The statements of claim being sent out might look suspicious, like they come from a scam artist, but they are very real according to privacy lawyer David Fraser with McInnes Cooper.
He says the registered mail is addressed to John Doe, it lists the relevant IP addresses, and at this time, all seem to come with a cover letter from the Toronto law firm Aird and Berlis.
“John Doe” is used because the studio doesn’t yet know the names of the people they are suing.
Fraser tells NEWS 95.7 if you get one of these letters, you must legally respond within 30 days, or you will be considered guilty and have to pay up.
“Once the Hollywood studio has the IP address, they can go to court and they can get an order requiring the internet service provider to connect that IP address to a customer name and address,” says Fraser. “And with that in hand, then they are able to sue them.”
Fraser says it's possible to settle out of court for the sum of approximately $750 to $1,500, and he says while that might sound like a lot of money, the claim from Hollywood studios is that they are owed $5,000 for each violation of copyright.
He says for now, these letters are just starting to be sent out.
“Right now there are at least 16 of these that are pending at various stages in front of the Federal Court of Canada, and this is the first one that I'm aware of where the blizzard of statements of claim have been served,” says Fraser.
“So there are a whole bunch more that are to come, I'm sure.”
He says the temptation may be strong to just throw the letter, but he strongly cautions against that.
“The reality is they can't ignore it, because if that 30 days passes without a defence, or a waiver of a defence from the plaintiff's lawyers then you could be found in default,” says Fraser.
