The Outpost - Mass Copyright Litigation

 

(Wikepedia)

Another instalment in the mass litigation litany from the Aird and Berlis firm has now been released involving The Outpost - a 2020 picture.

There are 841 "Doe" defendants. See attached Statement of Claim.

HPK

Two New Mass Copyright Lawsuits – Rambo: Last Blood & Angel Has Fallen

Here two more mass copyright lawsuits involving films in Canada:

• Action T-196-20 involves RAMBO: LAST BLOOD. There are 1,218 John Doe defendants.
• Action T-198-20 involves ANGEL HAS FALLEN. There are 2,130 John Doe defendants.

Both actions are from the usual law firm – Aird and Berlis, LLP.

Presumably, “Norwich Orders” will be sought in both cases for the internet service providers (“ISPs”) to disclose the actual names and addresses behind the IP addresses.

It will be interesting to see if any of the ISPs will step up to the plate to determine if the Norwich Orders are indeed justified and, if appropriate, to stand up for the privacy interests and rights of their subscribers.

HPK

Update on Canadian Copyright Mass Litigation – September Snapshot

This photo of Ottawa is courtesy of TripAdvisor

As I reported earlier, regarding the Rogers v. Salna “reverse class action” case against 55,000 or so unnamed defendants and the issue of reasonable reimbursement to Rogers for providing the names and street addresses of these potential defendants if the case gets that far, Voltage filed a Notice of Appeal on August 16, 2019.  As predicted, Rogers has filed a Notice of Cross-Appeal dated August 28, 2019.

It will be interesting to see whether and how the outcome of this appeal and cross-appeal from a trial level decision that in turn resulted from a remand from the Supreme Court of Canada and which could go on for still some time, will affect the proposed reverse class action that began in 2016. The long delayed certification motion for the reverse class is scheduled for September 23rd   and 24th , 2019. The key documents for this motion have apparently not yet been filed.

There’s also an important contested proceeding underway for a Norwich Disclosure order that is being contested by Eastlink and Xplornet that will the subject of a case management conference on September 19, 2019.

It will be interesting to see how vigorously the ISPs fight to protect the privacy of their subscribers. Presumably,  none of them yet have any idea that they have been named as a “Doe #” and could be on the hook for up to $5,000 and will have to self-defend (perhaps with help from Pro Bono Ontario), find a lawyer who is able and willing to help them on a cost effective basis, or take the risk of ignoring the proceedings and being vulnerable to default judgment.

Then there’s the appeal and cross-appeal unfolding in the Teksavvy case, which I wrote about some months ago.

All of this, not to mention the ongoing 18 so other cases against thousands of “Doe” defendants regarding various Voltage, etc. matters.

There are important issues that cut across all these proceedings and which could have a potentially profound effect on the public interest. The apparent lack of sufficient attention to the public interest to date should be of serious concern to policy makers, who have yet to implement regulations about reimbursement, and to the Courts, which have never faced this kind of mass litigation on this scale and with this sophistication before in Canada. I was very much involved in this first of these cases, the BMG case, back in 2004-2005. The rigorous test for disclosure set forth by the Federal Court of Appeal in that case at the behest of Shaw, Telus & CIPPIC (which I then represented) has not been followed or even invoked in all cases since then, although Teksavvy now seems to be pursuing it in in earnest in the case noted above.

Copyright owners are entitled to protect their rights and the recent fronts of litigation referred to above have been conducted in Canada with commendable Canadian courtesy. This has happened without the extreme and even criminal excesses we have seen in some American “troll” litigation. Some Canadian ISPs are standing up to be counted; however, they have their own commercial interests to consider which are not necessarily going to result in the protection of the interests of their customers.  Overall, there is a serious systemic access to justice problem here that somehow needs to be addressed.

As I’ve said before, it’s useful to recall the clear words Justice Brown of the Supreme Court of Canada in reimbursement decision, Rogers Communications Inc. v. Voltage Pictures, LLC, [2018] 2 SCR 643, 2018 SCC 38.  Here are perhaps the two most consequential paragraphs in the judgment – which arguably put a potentially severe chill on all the legal basis of the outstanding mass BitTorrent cases:

[35] I acknowledge that there will likely be instances in which the person who receives notice of a claimed copyright infringement will not in fact have illegally shared copyrighted content online. This might occur, for example, where one IP address, while registered to the person who receives notice of an infringement, is available for the use of a number of individuals at any given time. Even in such instances, however, accuracy is crucial. Where, for example, a parent or an employer receives notice, he or she may know or be able to determine who was using the IP address at the time of the alleged infringement and could take steps to discourage or halt continued copyright infringement. Similarly, while institutions or businesses offering Internet access to the public may not know precisely who used their IP addresses to illegally share copyrighted works online, they may be able, upon receiving notice, to take steps to secure its internet account with its ISP against online copyright infringement in the future.

 [41] It must be borne in mind that being associated with an IP address that is the subject of a notice under s. 41.26(1)(a) is not conclusive of guilt.  As I have explained, the person to whom an IP address belonged at the time of an alleged infringement may not be the same person who has shared copyrighted content online. It is also possible that an error on the part of a copyright owner would result in the incorrect identification of an IP address as having been the source of online copyright infringement. Requiring an ISP to identify by name and physical address the person to whom the pertinent IP address belonged would, therefore, not only alter the balance which Parliament struck in legislating the notice and notice regime, but do so to the detriment of the privacy interests of persons, including innocent persons, receiving notice.

(highlight and emphasis added)

Even if these comments from the SCC go beyond the narrow “ratio decidendi” (what is actually decided and what is generally rooted in the facts) to the those that are “obiter dicta”, the latter type of comments can still be authoritative if they are closely related to “ratio decidendi”.  Those who are curious about the role of SCC “obiter dicta” may want to read the SCC’s own important 2005 decision regarding this issue. See  R. v. Henry, [2005] 3 SCR 609, 2005 SCC 76. In this instance, these comments were arguably closely related to the “ratio” and should now be regarded as binding authority.

This SCC ruling may mean that a very large number of those who have been or may become caught up in Canadian copyright mass litigation and who cannot be shown on the basis of reliable, sufficient  and admissible evidence to have done anything more than to pay for internet service are not only not liable for copyright infringement but arguably should never be drawn into the process in the first place.

HPK

Voltage Pictures and the Massive Mass Litigation Mess in Canada

Voltage Pictures has been trying to sue 55,000 Canadians all at once through an unprecedented federal “reverse class action” in which one defendant was singled out and expected to defend the interests of the entire so-called class. Voltage seems to have picked its fight with the wrong defendant – Mr. Robert Salna - who is a landlord and who is sufficiently principled and financially able to have retained capable counsel. In the course of this quest, Voltage Pictures also managed to fight with Rogers as an ISP from which it sought disclosure of names and addresses. Both of the fights found their way to the Supreme Court of Canada, which recently declined to hear Voltage's appeal in one case and ruled against Voltage in the other. 

The Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) ruled on September 14, 2018 in   Rogers Communications Inc. v. Voltage Pictures, LLC, 2018 SCC 38 (CanLII), that Rogers is entitled to be reimbursed for “its reasonable costs of compliance with the Norwich order” to disclose the names and addresses of alleged copyright infringers. Here is the webcast of the SCC hearing that took place on April 26, 2018. This was in the context of the controversial “reverse class action” by Voltage Pictures against 55,000 or so individuals. The ruling will clearly affect future mass litigation and should have a serious and chilling impact on other pending mass litigation, of which there are at least 17 examples in the Federal Court involving thousands of individual “Doe” defendants. These 17 or so actions are not reverse class actions but typically sweep in hundreds of “Doe” defendants alleged to have infringed the same movie using BitTorrent.  All of these cases have been launched by Mr. Kenneth Clark of Aird and Berlis LLP

These costs – to be determined by the motions judge and this time with an adequate evidentiary record – can include only the steps above and beyond those already required by the Copyright Act pursuant the Notice and Notice regime. The SCC decision is notable for many reasons.

The issuance of the decision followed unusually quickly – less than five months after the April 26, 2018 oral hearing. The Court usually takes about six months or so.

It follows the major SCC setback for Voltage when on August 9, 2018 the SCC dismissed Voltage Pictures et al’s application for leave to appeal from a judgment from the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) affirming the Federal Courts’ February 2, 2017 order regarding security for costs but for very different reasons. Voltage had been ordered to pay $75,000 into court for security for costs forthwith – which dates back to February 2, 2017 – more than 19 months ago. This payment apparently still has not been made, so the “reverse class action” has presumably fizzled fatally and finally. The reverse class action never got to the “certification” stage, where it would very likely have failed. The astonishing concept of forcing one individual chosen by the plaintiff to retain counsel and defend a class of 55,000 others - each of whom may have a different story to tell – was apparently predicated upon an untested reading of the Federal Courts Rules, which have not been and almost certainly were never meant to be used in the reverse mode as contemplated in this way.

This hearing was about an interlocutory procedural matter involving an apparently very small amount of money with an inadequate evidentiary record and very little explanation by the motions judge of why he thought $100/hour was appropriate – or a suggestion as to how many hours would be required. The SCC rarely gets involved in such matters but obviously saw the importance of this issue. Given the inadequate record below, the SCC hearing at times resembled a motion in the Federal Court with experienced lawyers and justices at times seeming to speak the language of systems analysis.

Oral arguments can and do matter - and Voltage said some things discussed below that may have backfired in this case and may cause it problems in the future beyond the obvious fact that it and others will now have to pay an amount – not necessarily “negligible” – for the details of each alleged infringer’s name and address.

It is clear that the SCC is concerned about the torrent of BitTorrent litigation in Canada. It has been clear since 2011 that Voltage and some apparently related entities are trying to unleash a Torrent of “BitTorrent” litigation. There have been changes in lawyers and strategies along the way in the quest to bring what many would call “copyright trolling” litigation – or worse - to Canada.

Justice Abella challenged Mr. Kenneth Clark, the counsel from Aird & Berlis LLP, for Voltage in the SCC hearing, as to whether his concerns that “The sky isn't necessarily fallen, but it has certainly caused a lot of damage” was based upon actual evidence or “just anecdotal.” He had no good answer. Indeed, he told her that “The United States has been complaining about Canada's position as a copyright infringer for a long time and in our materials we included a 2017 report saying Canada is still a haven for copyright pirates.” Voltage placed a lot of reliance on anecdotal and unreliable secondary sources – such as an IIPA report from 2017.   That report was  an IIPA report from 2017, which is an annual report from an American lobbying firm used to heavily influence USTR “301” reports. These reports are argumentative, mostly anecdotal and virtually devoid of scholarly rigor or actual evidence.  As I said in 2010 about these IIPA reports, the IIPA is the powerful Washington lobbying organization that is highly influential in the content of the notorious annual USTR “Special 301" report - which provides predictable and perennial negative commentary about Canada that our own Government says "lacks reliable and objective analysis". They are not taken seriously by the Canadian government. It is hardly a legal authority and should never have been filed as an authority in the SCC. Clearly, the SCC wisely ignored it.

In this case, Voltage’s counsel told the Supreme Court that he was trying “to make copyright infringement akin to a parking ticket” and that he was looking for “$100 or $200, in the ballpark…” per defendant. So, why has he been looking for $5,000 settlements in the 17 other mass litigation BitTorrent actions he has been pursuing in the Federal Court beginning in 2016? $5000 is quite a parking ticket. It’s the maximum the statute allows for statutory damages for non-commercial infringement and 50 time more than the minimum of $100. And why would anyone ever agree to settle at the max at the beginning of a process that is extremely unlikely to go to trial?

Voltage and other will now have to come up with real money when the Federal Court determines reasonable costs of compliance with Norwich orders. In the past, Voltage fizzled when it came to paying $33,380 costs in the TekSavvy case and now has failed to pay $75,000 into court for security of costs in this reverse class action case.

Above all, the SCC has made it explicitly clear that merely “being associated with an IP address that is the subject of a notice under s. 41.26(1)(a) is not conclusive of guilt”.  The SCC also clearly stated in the 2004  CCH v. LSUC decision that liability for “authorization” must entail “sufficient control” over the person doing the infringing, which is surely an oxymoron when it comes to teenage children and their friends using the household Wi-Fi with numerous devices. So, it’s open to question now whether there can even be any massive drift net type of action based upon any sustainable one-size-fits- all pleading – especially by way of a simplified action involving BitTorrent activity.

The Court’s judgment should put the brakes on some of the arguably overly informal procedures and accommodating rulings in the name of efficiency by the Federal Court in these 17 actions. This approach has apparently been based upon the sweeping dicta of Justice Stratas in the FCA decision below that culminated in his urging that these cases be dealt with “as quickly, easily and efficiently as possible while ensuring fair treatment of all.” Hopefully, more attention will now be paid on the “fair treatment for all” rather than the “quickly” and “easily” wording.

Here are perhaps the two most consequential paragraphs in the judgment – which put a severe chill on all the legal basis of the outstanding mass BitTorrent cases:

[35] I acknowledge that there will likely be instances in which the person who receives notice of a claimed copyright infringement will not in fact have illegally shared copyrighted content online. This might occur, for example, where one IP address, while registered to the person who receives notice of an infringement, is available for the use of a number of individuals at any given time. Even in such instances, however, accuracy is crucial. Where, for example, a parent or an employer receives notice, he or she may know or be able to determine who was using the IP address at the time of the alleged infringement and could take steps to discourage or halt continued copyright infringement. Similarly, while institutions or businesses offering Internet access to the public may not know precisely who used their IP addresses to illegally share copyrighted works online, they may be able, upon receiving notice, to take steps to secure its internet account with its ISP against online copyright infringement in the future.

[41] It must be borne in mind that being associated with an IP address that is the subject of a notice under s. 41.26(1)(a) is not conclusive of guilt.  As I have explained, the person to whom an IP address belonged at the time of an alleged infringement may not be the same person who has shared copyrighted content online. It is also possible that an error on the part of a copyright owner would result in the incorrect identification of an IP address as having been the source of online copyright infringement. Requiring an ISP to identify by name and physical address the person to whom the pertinent IP address belonged would, therefore, not only alter the balance which Parliament struck in legislating the notice and notice regime, but do so to the detriment of the privacy interests of persons, including innocent persons, receiving notice.

(highlight and emphasis added)

Even if these comments from the SCC go beyond the narrow “ratio decidendi” (what is actually decided and what is generally rooted in the facts) to the those that are “obiter dicta”, the latter type of comments can still be authoritative if they are closely related to “ratio decidendi”.  Those who are curious about the role of SCC “obiter dicta” may want to read the SCC’s own important 2005 decision regarding this issue. See  R. v. Henry.  In this instance, these comments were arguably closely related to the “ratio” and should now be regarded as binding authority.

Hopefully, these statements from the SCC will send a clear signal to the case management prothonotaries and judges in the Federal Court to proceed with caution, to ask the necessary questions in default proceedings, and not to inappropriately sign default judgments or even consent judgments that do not appear to be appropriate in individual cases. Above all, the SCC judgment may serve to prevent hundreds or thousands of unsuspecting individuals having judgments entered against them en masse in default proceeding for up to $5,000 each– with all the attendant consequences that could follow.

We are, unfortunately, seeing American-style mass litigation in Canada predicated upon the notion that few defendants will retain counsel to fight a “parking ticket” but will settle for some portion or, inexplicably in some cases apparently even all -  of the maximum amount of $5,000. This is being fueled by lack of access to justice. Sadly, the law school clinics are not stepping up to the plate. In some cases, lawyers may be giving questionable advice. All of this will hopefully somehow soon stop. Presumably, the Federal Court will get the message from the SCC.

HPK

PS - update of January 2, 2019

Voltage has paid the required $75,000 into court on November 9, 2018 and steps are being taken to determine Rogers' "reasonable costs", pursuant to the ruling of the SCC. Here's the docket: http://apps.fct-cf.gc.ca/pq/IndexingQueries/infp_RE_info_e.php?court_no=T-662-16&select_court=T 

More On Mass Copyright Litigation in Canada – Part II

I have recently been writing about copyright litigation directed at BitTorrent users in Canada which I have been doing since my posting almost exactly seven years ago on September 7, 2011 on Voltage Pictures  attempt at that time to launch mass lawsuits against individuals in its Hurt Locker litigation. There have been several changes in strategy and law firms involved on the mass litigation front since then. Two of my recent posts deal with:

•        The refusal of the Supreme Court of Canada to grant leave to appeal to Voltage Pictures regarding the Federal Court’s order of February 2, 2017 – as upheld by the Federal court of Appeal – to pay $75,000 into court for security of costs forthwith. Since the payment has not been made, that litigation is presumably stalled if not dead. This litigation was launched by Mr. Kenneth (“Ken”) Clark of Aird & Berlis LLP.
•        The series of 16 lawsuits (attached below for reader’s convenience and reference purposes*) launched by various film companies against thousands of individual “Doe” defendants. Each of these lawsuits was filed as a “simplified action” with a filing fee of only $50.00 These were also started by Mr. Clark.

All that said, the following is, as usual on this blog but even more so, not to be taken as legal advice or to be relied upon by anyone for any particular purpose and is certainly not directed specifically at the above litigation. It is relevant to copyright ligation generally and may hopefully be of interest and assistance to lawyers who are not fully familiar with copyright law and certain provisions of the Federal Courts rules. I am pleased that lawyers are probably the most frequent readers of this blog.

Anyone who has been implicated in any copyright litigation and who does not know how to or does not wish to represent themselves should quickly consult with a lawyer who is fully familiar with this area of law and practice. I am aware of instances in which lawsuits against BitTorrent users have been dismissed with no settlement payment with the help of knowledgeable counsel at a very low cost. On the other hand, I and other knowledgeable copyright lawyers are asking what circumstances could result in any experienced IP lawyers consenting to judgments as high as $5,000 against an individual, presumably plus whatever fee they charge their clients for negotiating such high-end settlements.  On this point, I’ve been quoted on August 22, 2018 in the very paywalled WireReport as follows:

“I can’t comment on any particular settlement because I don’t know the

specific facts,” Howard Knopf, a lawyer at Macera and Jarzyna, said in an

email. “However, $5,000 is the maximum statutory damages amount that

could ever be awarded for non-commercial activity in these types of cases

even in a contested proceeding.”

 He added: “Canadian courts are clear that statutory damages must somehow

correlate to actual damages, which in these en masse BitTorrent situations

are arguably less than $10 for infringement of one work by one individual.

The minimum statutory damage award for non-commercial infringement is

$100. Generally speaking, even if a settlement amount has to be paid – which

is far from clear in these situations — one would expect that it would be at the

lower end and not the upper limit.”

(highlight and emphasis added)

References in the following to Rules are to the Canadian Federal Courts Rules  are not directed specifically at any particular cases and are potentially applicable to any copyright BitTorrent litigation  brought in the Federal Court of Canada:

1.     Service of a statement of claim can be done by registered mail but is only legally effective if the individual being sued actually signs a post office receipt. (Rule 128(1)(e). Nobody is required to sign a post office receipt for an unexpected envelope from a law firm or any other party. Other methods of service are possible but will be more expensive and time consuming for the plaintiff.

2.     When a plaintiff, such as a film company “is ordinarily resident outside Canada” or “has not provided an address in the statement of claim, or has provided an incorrect address therein, and has not satisfied the Court that the omission or misstatement was made innocently and without intention to deceive”, the Federal Court may order the plaintiff to give security for defendant’s costs. (Rule 416).  Security for costs orders involving non-resident plaintiffs are routine and may require the plaintiff to pay several thousand dollars into court in order to proceed with the litigation against any individual who brings the appropriate motion. Normally such payments into court are made based on a consent order. Sometimes, foreign plaintiffs decide not to proceed when the security for costs issue is even raised. The recent refusal by the Supreme Court of Canada to hear on appeal of the order that Voltage Pictures post $75,000 for security of costs in a “reverse class action” underlines the importance of this rule. There is no reason why Rule 416 could not be applied by individual defendants in litigation targeting several hundred “Doe” defendants at a time. I have seen security of costs used as both a sword and shield. It can be effective in both respects - and any competent lawyer should be fully aware of the possibilities.

3.     There are no judicial precedents in Canada establishing liability on the part of a BitTorrent user for copyright infringement. Moreover, there are no judicial precedents establishing liability on the part of an internet services account holder for someone else’s activity using that account, even if such activity may have infringed copyright. Moreover, many households have multiple users of an internet connection, including children, babysitters, etc. An unsecured router may provide access to many unknown persons. Indeed, there’s a recent very important decision in the USA – which though not binding in Canada – could be very influential. I recently wrote about this very important American appellate decision from the influential 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals in   Cobbler Nevada v. Gonzales, wherein the Court stated:

The district court properly dismissed Cobbler Nevada’s claims. The direct infringement claim fails because Gonzales’s status as the registered subscriber of an infringing IP address, standing alone, does not create a reasonable inference that he is also the infringer. Because multiple devices and individuals may be able to connect via an IP address, simply identifying the IP subscriber solves only part of the puzzle. A plaintiff must allege something more to create a reasonable inference that a subscriber is also an infringer. Nor can Cobbler Nevada succeed on a contributory infringement theory because, without allegations of intentional encouragement or inducement of infringement, an individual’s failure to take affirmative steps to police his internet connection is insufficient to state a claim.

4.     The US Court’s stance on contributory infringement is consistent with the Supreme Court of Canada’s position on “authorization” in the 2004 decision in CCH Canadian v Law Society of Upper Canada, in which the SCC held that:

…a person does not authorize infringement by authorizing the mere use of equipment that could be used to infringe copyright. Courts should presume that a person who authorizes an activity does so only so far as it is in accordance with the law. (para 38).

5.     Here is a recent important law review article entitled “Defense Against the Dark Arts of Copyright Trolling”   the lead author of which, Matthew Sag, is a prominent American copyright law professor and the co-author Jake Haskell is a Chicago practitioner. While this article is based upon American law and practice, much of it may be of interest and potential utility in the Canadian context. Law review articles are often provided as an “authority” in a court case, if relevant to the issues before the court. It would not be surprising if this article were to be put on the record in any Canadian litigation involving BitTorrent litigation, if the litigation proceeds any distance. This article shows, among many things, that virtually none of these proceedings ever go to trial – which raises some very interesting questions about the intentions of the plaintiffs. As the abstract says, “The plaintiffs bringing these cases target hundreds or thousands of defendants nationwide and seek quick settlements priced just low enough that it is less expensive for the defendant to pay rather than to defend the claim, regardless of the claim’s merits.”

6.     Even when liability can be proven, unless a plaintiff can establish substantial actual damages, the usual recourse is to “statutory minimum damages”, which under Canadian law must bear some correlation to what actual damages would have been. Where the activity is “non-commercial”, the maximum amount of statutory minimum damages is $5,000 and the minimum is $100. There are no reported binding precedents establishing any particular amount of damages on the part of an individual for non-commercial BitTorrent activity in Canada. The plaintiff’s actual loss for the cost of any given stream or download would likely be a few dollars at the most, so even $100 seem like a stretch – but Parliament has made this minimum if this provision is invoked. Moreover, use of this provision in a judgment – even a consent judgment, will have the following effect:

 If a copyright owner has made an election under subsection (1) with respect to a defendant’s infringements that are for non-commercial purposes, every other copyright owner is barred from electing to recover statutory damages under this section in respect of that defendant for any of the defendant’s infringements that were done for non-commercial purposes before the institution of the proceedings in which the election was made. (Copyright Act, s. 38.1(1.20)

7.     There is a mechanism in the Federal Court rule that is intended to encourage strategic settlement offers. If a strategic settlement offer is made in a timely and proper manner, and the plaintiff does not ultimately recover at least as much as that offer, the plaintiff will be liable for double the defendant’s legal costs calculated according the Court’s formula after the date of the offer. In a case of non-commercial copyright infringement on the part of an individual, the starting point of damages that a court could award is $100. Here’s what the Federal Court Rules say:

Consequences of failure to accept defendant’s offer

420(2) Unless otherwise ordered by the Court and subject to subsection (3), where a defendant makes a written offer to settle,

·        (a) if the plaintiff obtains a judgment less favourable than the terms of the offer to settle, the plaintiff is entitled to party-and-party costs to the date of service of the offer and the defendant shall be entitled to costs calculated at double that rate, but not double disbursements, from that date to the date of judgment; or

·        (b) if the plaintiff fails to obtain judgment, the defendant is entitled to party-and-party costs to the date of the service of the offer and to costs calculated at double that rate, but not double disbursements, from that date to the date of judgment.

 General Observations on Mass Litigation

As the study by Sag and Haskell above shows, the plaintiffs in most mass litigation cases have no intention of proceeding to trial and are hoping to extract the highest possible settlement at the lowest possible cost. A number of lawyers in Canada are beginning to look at these types of lawsuits and possible steps to protect the interests of individual defendants at an early stage and with a minimum amount of expense. There are concerns about how mass copyright litigation has been dealt with by Federal Court. More to follow at a later date…

Anyone who has actually been served with a lawsuit is foolish to ignore it. The result may be a default judgment for a substantial amount of money that may be difficult, if not impossible, to set aside. Therefore, it is important to consult counsel who are experienced in both copyright law and the Federal Court Rules.  It is legitimate for any person involved in mass litigation to ask any lawyer who is recommending substantial settlements – especially at the high end of non-commercial statutory minimum liability, namely $5,000 –  why he or she is making such a recommendation.

HPK

*AIRD & BERLIS LLP “DOE” CASES 

2016-2018

As of August 29, 2018 (Revised August 31, 2018)

	FCT File #	Style of Cause	Type of Case	Date
1.	T-662-16	VOLTAGE PICTURES ET AL v. JOHN DOE ET AL (Salna)	Copyright Infringement [Applications] [note – $75,000 security for costs remains unpaid]	2016-04-26
2.	T-1614-16	CELL FILM HOLDINGS LLC v. DOE #1 ET AL	Copyright Infringement [Actions]	27-SEP-2016
3.	T-1674-16	DALLAS BUYERS CLUB, LLC v. DOE #1 ET AL	Copyright Infringement [Actions]	2016-10-05
4.	T-1692-16	HYBRID, LLC v. DOE #1 et.al.	Copyright Infringement [Actions]	2016-10-07
5.	T-2177-16	ME2 PRODUCTIONS, INC. v. DOE #1 ET AL	Copyright Infringement [Actions]	2016-12-19
6.	T-264-17	LHF PRODUCTION INC v. DOE #1 ET AL	Copyright Infringement [Actions]	2017-02-24
7.	T-265-17	CRIMINAL PRODUCTIONS v. DOE#1 ET AL	Copyright Infringement [Actions]	2017-02-24
8.	T-481-17	WWE STUDIOS FINANCE CORP. v. DOE #1 et.al.	Copyright Infringement [Actions]	2017-03-31
9.	T-908-17	UN4 PRODUCTIONS, INC. v. DOE #1 et.al.	Copyright Infringement [Actions]	2017-06-21
10.	T-909-17	COLOSSAL MOVIE PRODUCTIONS, LLC v. DOE #1 et.al.	Copyright Infringement [Actions]	2017-06-21
11.	T-1085-17	HEADHUNTER LLC v. DOE #1 ET AL	Copyright Infringement [Actions]	2017-07-24
12.	T-1086-17	JUSTICE EVERYWHERE PRODUCTIONS LLC v. DOE #1 ET AL	Copyright Infringement [Actions]	2017-07-24
13.	T-1087-17	VENICE PI, LLC v. DOE #1 et. al.	Patent [Sic?] Infringement	2017-07-24
14.	T-1918-17	BODYGUARD PRODUCTIONS, INC. v. DOE #1 et.al.	Copyright Infringement [Actions]	2017-12-18
15.	T-1926-17	WIND RIVER PRODUCTIONS, LLC v. DOE #1 ET. AL.	Copyright Infringement [Actions]	2017-12-18
16.	T-71-18	MORGAN CREEK PRODUCTIONS, INC. v. DOE #1 et.al.	Copyright Infringement [Actions]	2018-01-12
17.	T-513-18	POW NEVADA, LLC v. DOE #1 ET AL	Copyright Infringement [Actions]	2018-03-16