Federal Court Refuses To Certify Reverse Class Action Against Indeterminate Number Of Canadians

Last week, the Federal Court of Canada dismissed an unusual "reverse class action" brought by a group of film production companies (collectively referred to as "Voltage") against a potentially indeterminate number of Canadians in respect of alleged peer-to-peer file sharing of Voltage's copyrighted films. The decision in Voltage Pictures, LLC et al. v Robert Salna et al., signals an unwillingness to allow copyright holders to pursue unnamed individuals for alleged infringement without clear evidence they are properly named as defendants. The Court declined to rely on evidence of IP addresses allegedly used to share the films on the basis that a person holding an address may not be the one using it for the alleged infringement.