Montreal Tech Watch





TOPICS:
STARTUPS
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
WEB2.0
EVENTS
MOBILE
VIDEO GAMES
JOBS
HACKING

QuebecTorrent’s lawsuit might get all Canadian p2p trackers illegal (6)

November 27th, 2007 · by Heri · Hacking

QuebecTorrent.com, a local torrent tracker, is entagled in a lawsuit started last month by the Canadian music industry. They received first a cease&desist order, but eventually won this first attempt and are still online. The case is just starting though, with ongoing developments.

Of course, record companies like Sony BMG, EMI, Universal Music Canada are describing themselves as victims, and the website’s owner and administrator as pirates who ripped off hard-working artists. On the other hand, QuebecTorrent’s owner, Sébastien Brulotte, changed the website’s “mission” for personal uses only, is calling his community’s members’ help, and is asking for help on various websites, notably digg. Furthermore, he was alarmed that the case would make a jurisprudential case and make thus all p2p websites like IsoHunt or TorrentBox in Canada illegal.

I have no knowledge of Québec&Canadian law about peer-to-peer sharing and fair use, but here is nonetheless a comment by a Canadian who owns a web hosting company:

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.

Surprisingly, the case has little to no press in the local press. I stumbled upon an article at La Presse which describes QuebecTorrent administrators as criminals who are about to be busted by the GRC. Other media groups in the province, like Québecor, are known to work hand-in-hand with the music industry.

Comments

Related



Ads

podcamp montreal 2010

See the Montreal Technology community at TechEntreprise

Events

  • Sat Sep 11 9:00 AM - Sun Sep 12 5:00 PM: PodCamp Montréal 2010 (Coeur des Sciences de l'UQAM - 175 avenue du Président-Kennedy, Montreal, Montreal)

  • Register and see upcoming events at TechEntreprise


    Flickr

    alexa clark @ wordcampmontrealHugh McGuire @ wordcampmontreal@ wordcampmontreal@ wordcampmontreal@enkerli @ wordcampmontreal@ wordcampmontrealJerome Paradis @ wordcampmontrealSaber Triki @ wordcampmontreal@ wordcampmontrealenkerli @ wordcampmontreal

    MTW is brought to you by:

    Montreal Tech Watch is also

    See the Montreal Technology community at TechEntreprise

    Follow MTW's activity with the twitter feed



    © 2007 Montreal Tech Watch
    Photographs taken by MTW are under Creative Commons. Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0
    Screenshots, logos, videos, and trademarks showcased on Montreal Tech Watch are the property of their respective owners.