Montreal Tech Watch

QuebecTorrent, a quebec-based torrent tracker, was ordered by the Superior Court of Quebec to close the website late last week.

To my knowledge, it’s a first in Canada, where file-sharing is still legal (well, until bill C-61 comes). Here, the legal team from media groups Musicor, Zone 3 Musique, TVA Groupe Inc, succeeded into making the administrator of the website, M. Sébastien Brûlotte, admit that the website was damaging the entertainment industry. They were in fact threatning M.Brûlotte of $200.000 in damages if he won’t “play nicely”.

QuebecTorrent has had 100.000 members during its lifespan, with torrents tracking in total 2700To. Compared to other websites like isohunt or thepiratebay, it is a relatively small torrent tracker though; and it’s likely that the owner of the website didn’t want to go through all these legal hassles for a website which is obviously a side-project.

The court judgement is interesting though because it sets a precedent in Montreal and in Canada for future similar cases, for companies or individuals considering p2p.

For the anecdote, the judge ordered the M.Brûlotte to display the court’s decision on the website till july 2009. The defendant complied; but the notice is drowned by advertising, plus a liberal dose of pop-ups and pop-unders.

(just for fun)