Can Canadian Courts Issue Site-Blocking Orders? Prior to last
Friday, it would have been unprecedented. With the Federal
Court's decision in Bell Media Inc v GoldTV Services
(2019 FC 1432), that is no longer the case.
Although it is a single trial court decision, owners of Canadian
copyrights and their lawyers now have an affirmative answer and
even a test to apply to the issue.
The case relates to two websites, GoldTV.biz and GoldTV.ca,
which offered an unauthorized subscription service allowing users
to stream copyrighted content. The copyright owners and exclusive
licensees (Rogers Media Inc., Groupe TVA Inc. and Bell Media Inc.)
objected to this, alleging infringement.
Conspicuous by his, her, or their absence were John Doe 1 and
John Doe 2, the respective operators of the sites. Despite the
plaintiff's diligent efforts, identifying these entities proved
impossible, with the judges in earlier stages of the proceedings
commenting that this was likely due to
