Rights holders, advocacy groups can intervene in site-blocking case

In a closely-watched appeal of Canada's first-ever site-blocking court order, the Federal Court of Appeal will allow six different sets of intervenors to file three different interventions, according to a decision issued Wednesday. The case, which sees internet service provider (ISP) TekSavvy Solutions Inc. appeal a Federal Court order issued back in November ordering TekSavvy, Distributel Communications Ltd., and Cogeco Inc. to block a so-called "pirate IPTV" service known as GoldTV, is the first of its kind in Canada. BCE Inc., Rogers Communications Inc., and Quebecor Inc. had asked the court for the precedent-setting blocking order at a two-day hearing back in September. Wednesday, justice David Stratas approved the applications for leave to intervene from a range of public interest organizations, trade groups, sports broadcasters, and even a professional soccer league. The intervention applicants -- some sixteen different organizations -- grouped themselves into six different applications, which the court has further whittled down to three approved interventions. Explaining the process, Stratas wrote that "allowing all six to intervene separately with separate counsel would result in lack of economy and duplication." "As well, choosing what appears to be the best intervener in each group and rejecting the others would be arbitrary; perhaps in the end a rejected intervener might have been more useful," he wrote. The Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa (CIPPIC) and the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) -- while they applied to intervene separately -- will have to collaborate on a single memorandum of fact and law. CIPPIC and CIRA will seek to challenge the federal court's authority to order site-blocking, according to their application. Likewise, the second approved intervention will have to comprise contributions from the following thirteen organizations, mostly rights-holders in favor of site-blocking: the Fédération Internationale des Associations de Producteurs de Films; the Canadian Music Publishers Association; the International Confederation of Music Publishers; Music Canada; the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry; the International Publishers Association; the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers; the American Association of Publishers; the Publishers Association Limited; the Canadian Publishers’ Council; the Association of Canadian Publishers, the Football Association Premier League Limited, and Dazn Limited. The group of rights-holders plans to “ provide valuable perspective on this issue by referring this Court to relevant international instruments and jurisprudence which addresses these fundamental issues,” according to their application. The Premier League -- the top tier of English soccer -- said in its application that it has pursued site-blocking orders in jurisdictions around the world. The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) will be allowed to file its own intervention. "Counsel for parties grouped with other parties will have to work out who does what. But in large, sophisticated files, counsel are used to collaborating," Stratas wrote, while also cautioning intervenors against introducing evidence not already in the record. "All interveners must take the record as they find it," Stratas wrote. "They cannot add to the evidentiary record either directly by stating evidence not in the record or indirectly by making propositions of mixed fact and law when there is no evidentiary support." Last month, the three companies behind the site-blocking order had asked the appeal court judge to limit or reject the interventions from CIPPIC, CIRA, and the BCCLA. — With reporting by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Rights holders, advocacy groups can intervene in site-blocking case

News | June 24, 2020

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Rights holders, advocacy groups can intervene in site-blocking case

News | June 24, 2020

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