QuebecTorrent Lawsuit: Backdoor to Banning All Canadian BitTorrent Sites?
Written by enigmax on November 26, 2007Last month we reported that a relatively unknown torrent site had been ordered to shutdown at the hands of the Canadian recording industry. Now, there are fears that a legal precedent may be being sought by shutting this site, one which could affect all Canadian BitTorrent sites.
On October 18th 2007 we wrote about the situation faced by a couple of Canadian BitTorrent trackers being threatened by the recording industry there. One of them, the 46,000 member QuebecTorrent was being targeted by a coalition of four recording labels.
Since then the situation has grown much more serious and it is feared that this case could have implications for all Canadian hosted torrent sites. There are quite a few big sites hosted in Canada (IsoHunt and TorrentBox to name just two) and with LeaseWeb kicking out torrent sites en masse, it’s thought that there is the potential for a lot more to be hosted there in the future. Demonoid has already been effectively kicked out of Canada - so what now?
TorrentFreak spoke with QuebecTorrent and their legal team at Lecours & Lessard, Montréal to find out exactly what is happening with this case and how it affects the rest of the P2P community.
The Interview
TF: Who exactly is taking legal action against QuebecTorrent?
QT: 31 records / video producers and copyright holders associations (including companies like Sony BMG Music Canada, Universal Music Canada and EMI Group Canada), are suing QuebecTorrent, through Mr. Sebastien Brulotte, administrator of the website.
TF: These companies tried to get a preliminary injunction to shut the site. What’s happening with that?
QT: We contested yesterday the Plaintiffs’ motion to obtain a preliminary injunction order. Through this motion, the plaintiffs asked the Court to order the suspension of the QuebecTorrent website or, barring which, to freeze all Torrent files giving access to protected works available through the website. In this case the Court rejected the Plaintiff’s demands.
TF: Apart from trying to get an injunction, what else are these companies trying to gain against QuebecTorrent?
QT: Their vision of what constitutes a Peer to Peer website is rather limited. They present Peer to Peer and QuebecTorrent solely as pirates that deliberately infringe upon copyrights and are harmful to the music industry. On the merits of the case, they ask that the injunction order be made permanent and ask for the condemnation of QuebecTorrent for the sum of $200,000.00 in punitive damages.
TF: They are claiming this large sum from QuebecTorrent yet there are many other larger torrent sites in Canada right now. Why are they picking on QuebecTorrent?
QT: They chose QuebecTorrent as a target because, as they said, they could not find the name and address of any other Canadian torrent website administrator.
TF: Closing one site isn’t going to get them very far. Do they have any other objectives other than to crush QuebecTorrent?
QT: Their indirect objective seems to make a jurisprudential precedent of QuebecTorrent, applicable to all Peer to Peer websites. If an eventual decision would condemn QuebecTorrent, it would effectively create a jurisprudential precedent in Canadian law , as this judgment would constitute the first jurisprudence in this matter, it would set out the applicable law to all BitTorrent websites in Canada.
TF: Thank you for explaining the significance of this case to us. Good luck and please keep us informed.
The reason that LeaseWeb is kicking BitTorrent sites off its servers right now is because of a June ruling against a small, relatively unknown Dutch site called Everlasting.nu. The parallels to this case appear pretty obvious - beat up a little guy that few people know about and use that reputation to knock out the big guys you couldn’t have beaten so easily without the precedent.
There are many other complications that ensure that this situation remains fluid, but with the Netherlands looking less attractive by the day and the Canadian torrent situation looking far from stable, will administrators look to the East for their hosting or will they drop anchor at Sweden’s PRQ? According to their front page, PRQ are currently completely out of dedicated servers to rent but they are promising more capacity in a few weeks.
Hiring lawyers (in this case Lecours & Lessard, 354, rue Notre-Dame Ouest, Bureau 100, Montréal, Qc H2Y-1T9, Canada) isn’t cheap so anyone wishing to support QuebecTorrent, should consider visiting their donation page. They send a message of gratitude to those who have already donated to help them get this far and a reminder to everyone else that without donations they cannot defend themselves.
Stay tuned. It’s going to be an interesting Christmas in Torrent Land….
Previously: Open Letter From TorrentFreak To Brein
Next: Most Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk47)
78 Responses
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Pfft.. It jsut goes on and on.
Maybe I misunderstand the situation, but it seems a lot of people talk about a Canadian ruling that made file sharing for “personal use” legal. So a site that basically serves people to do that would not be illegal either? What’s the point if saying personal file sharing is legal but the only way to do personal file sharing is illegal, doesn’t that sorta mean it’s all illegal? I think I don’t understand the situation though. :(
Why the french canadian news don’t talk about that?
Hey, TPB, we need a revolutionary anonymous open source encrypted file sharing network that’s better then bittorrent now…
We have been here a while reading this for the past few months and have never had a chance to make a post in regards to peer 2 peer as there wasn’t a issue in Canada
Seems some company’s are now having issues and we would like to comment on the following
We have had company’s come to us asking for contact info for clients we just forward the email to the client and allow them to decide if they want to speak with whom ever is asking
We as a Data Center have always wondered in regards to allowing this type of site on our network and have spent quite a bit on lawyers insuring that it was legal. I’m not sure what is going on in Quebec But I believe it is more to do with the law not understanding what a torrent site is and the plaintiff’s trying to say the site holds the media itself. That here in Canada is 100% illegal. Though hosting index files related to a site is not. Therefore any torrent site that does not (Seed or Upload from the server) can not be charged with committing a crime. There even was a ruling by the supreme court of Canada in regards to downloading mp3’s that it is the same thing as going to a library and photo coping a page out of a book which people have been doing for decades. I’m sad to hear other company’s are not willing to defend their clients rights in a matter that is 100% ill legit. I do hope Quebec Torrents holds their ground and their host step up and help them instead of bowing to pressure that is unjust.
We at Moxiehosting hope all Company’s that host Peer 2 Peer Sites within the boarder’s of Canada step up to the plate and defend what should be defended.
For current Clients of Moxie who have sent us here to see this post be assured that we are not going to stand by and allow cdn server’s be shut down even if they decide to attack Moxie due to this post we feel that it is unjust and wrong for them to do what they are doing to sites here in Canada because others have been able to get away with it in other Country’s
Is why we make Canada our Home
Regards
Moxiehosting Staff
Very True!
I am with you Moxiehosting.
never ending bullshit :\
“Why the french canadian news don’t talk about that?”
LOL Quebecor have most of the news channel, journals, Archambault, Videotron, Canoe…. so no we are not living in a free country
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebecor
maybe TQS would comment the new, but im piss off trying
The RIAA and the MPAA Stole MY WORK.
Someone in my family made the infamous old Betty Boop cartoons that got famous, and the MPAA Stole that from my family, I think my great grandfather, I’m not sure, my grandma found out our families work got stolen.
yes spread this word around that Betty Boop copyright been stolen in the past to stop the MPAA, they are the pirates, not us, The MPAA ARE The Pirates.
They stole my work, I’m not lying, they are the thiefs.
I hate the MPAA.
By the way, quebec torrent have alist of artist that you can’t upload, if you dont want to see your music or movies on the tracker, you just have to send them a message
You’d think these companies would defend their clients, given how much business they’ll lose if all the torrent sites move to other providers… maybe thats just an outsiders perspective though..
nice to hear that Moxiehosting is willing to step up. how about some others step up to the plate..
Canadians losing their torrents?
THAT’s a shame.
Can’t the RIAA, MPAA are the rest of their mob just shut up? They’re like a hooker on crack. Jsut won’t shut the fuck up unless you shoot ‘em.
[quote comment="223946"]Can’t the RIAA, MPAA are the rest of their mob just shut up? They’re like a hooker on crack. Jsut won’t shut the fuck up unless you shoot ‘em.[/quote]
haha the perfect media pirate this hardcore evil criminal master mind.. dude please take one of ur 100s of guns put it to ur face and “Bl4Zt3″ it.. get one of ur “Hoes” to clean the mess up please stfu
I’m starting to get scared, ppl in countrys where this shit is happening have to stand up for yourself.
I’m from sweden and I was one of them standing up for the liberty of internet when they tried to close down TPB.
I hope there is ppl in canada holland and so on standing up for their rights.
It’s not enough to write on blogs, get out there and get noticed.
heh:
You just talked about TPB’s P2P protocol, which is under development.
http://securep2p.net/index.php?title=Main_Page
[quote comment="223955"][quote comment="223946"]Can’t the RIAA, MPAA are the rest of their mob just shut up? They’re like a hooker on crack. Jsut won’t shut the fuck up unless you shoot ‘em.[/quote]
haha the perfect media pirate this hardcore evil criminal master mind.. dude please take one of ur 100s of guns put it to ur face and “Bl4Zt3″ it.. get one of ur “Hoes” to clean the mess up please stfu[/quote]
Haha the perfect Media defender. Taking it up the arse from all his faggot mates snoting coke all day.
Just your typical faggot suit. You really have no fucking idea.
I agree with Axel. Please STFU little boy.
I’m on James’s side.
You old fags are loosing and you know it.
[quote comment="223900"]Hey, TPB, we need a revolutionary anonymous open source encrypted file sharing network that’s better then bittorrent now…[/quote]
It’s called RapidShare. Or MegaUpload. Or MediaFire. Or DivShare. http://warez-bb.org/
It’s funny how these people who still think piracy is such a bad thing think pirates are all kids.
I know plenty of people in thier 20’s, 30’s and 40’s and even 50’s that pirate.
And some are rather well off. Far from living in the basement.
I know cops that pirate. It’s not that big a deal to most people.
The Media groups are just trying to make it out as if it is.
[quote comment="223907"]I’m not sure what is going on in Quebec But I believe it is more to do with the law not understanding what a torrent site is and the plaintiff’s trying to say the site holds the media itself. That here in Canada is 100% illegal. Though hosting index files related to a site is not. Therefore any torrent site that does not (Seed or Upload from the server) can not be charged with committing a crime.[/quote]It is exactly like that in The Netherlands, so I wonder why leaseweb has no proper lawyers to explain this in court..
Here’s the deal:
Google indexes torrents as much as any other specialized torrent-indexing site does. Puuting some behind a registration shield for group and community (and taste/preference) purposes should not make ANY difference. I really wonder what the hell they’re thinking.
Oh, and I wonder why the name ‘SONY’ keeps on popping up. Do they even realize they’re selling burnable media (HDR/DVDR/CDR), or do they expect us not to find uses for them? Dirty hypocrites are trying to make money on ALL sides. Well, sorry, I’m not falling for that any longer.
Industry: If this is what you want, then we’ll bury you alive and go underground with ALL aspects of file-sharing technology. You should be glad we’re allowing you to see what we do. Have it your way, we’ll go into hiding again. To us it’s all the same, you’re just a mere nuisance with your stupid USELESS actions and claims. Power to the people, not the corporate whores of the industry. As Clint once so eloquently put it:
You can stick it in your ass!
Hey, I just had a brilliant idea!
…
and then read up to MoxieHosting’s post, and realized they brought up the point so explicitly, I think everyone realized it. Oh well, here goes anyway:
HEY PIRATEBAY! Trying to buy a small sovereign nation is the WRONG way to go - that was obvious, but I just realized what the RIGHT solution is; buy an ISP company!
The point of buying a small sovereign nation, is to bypass the legal pressures due to bitTorrent;
but here’s the thing:
NONE of the torrent sites have been taken down due to the legal system; ALL of the torrent sites have been taken down due to an ISP getting THREATENED and then caving in - NOT getting SUED!!!
Because torrents ARE legal, in every.single.country.on the planet! The problem isn’t the legal system, its the ISPs crumbling in terror;
bitTorrent doesn’t even NEED a new country. It just needs explicitly designated-friendly (not _necessarily_ dedicated-)ISPs.
The garbage the media defenders spew out is amazing.
Downloading music is illegal blah blah blah.
Maybe I should just post my music to friends, would that make them happy?
There are just so many ways to pirate. Let it go, the companies are still making huge profits.
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