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HammerofGawd
join:2012-06-30
23332

1 recommendation

HammerofGawd to TSI Marc

Member

to TSI Marc

Re: Why we are not opposing motion on Monday.

TS's lack of resolve and not telling the Troll to get stuffed is very disappointing. Precedents are being set here, DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THIS TS>>???

And BTW as a Rogers ISP customer, I have no faith that they will put up anymore resistance either even with all of their money.

Really, the Big Three should SMARTEN UP and start sending TS wads of cash to hire a first rate legal team to contest this garbage.

Voltage: go straight to the NINE HELLS.
ju1ce
join:2012-09-09
Richmond Hill, ON

ju1ce

Member

I think it's pretty simple.

Don't pirate and you most likely won't have any issues. It's a very simple solution really.
HammerofGawd
join:2012-06-30
23332

HammerofGawd

Member

"Most likely" ... LOL... and what of the wrongfully accused?

BACONATOR26
Premium Member
join:2000-11-25
Nepean, ON

BACONATOR26 to HammerofGawd

Premium Member

to HammerofGawd
It's not really TekSavvy's place to challenge the law as they said. But you can't say they didn't help as them showing up on Monday got it delayed until January. The alternative was TekSavvy could say no issue and the court would issue the ruling same day saying to hand over the data.

AkFubar
Admittedly, A Teksavvy Fan
join:2005-02-28
Toronto CAN.

AkFubar to abcjak

Member

to abcjak
said by abcjak:

I have not been a customer for long, and this pretty much sealed the deal for me to leave also. Don't call this rolling if you don't want to but that's what it is. When just about every other case worldwide is contested in some way, and this ends without even a whimper, something smells bad. There was no sticking out of any necks here, as suggested. All voltage had to do was agree to a delay of 3 weeks before getting everything they wanted, of course they would agree to those terms, the wait is not even an inconvenience. The real problem is how correct is the methodology in collecting that list of users, that's the kind of thing that needs to be put to the test which it will not be...here you go, all the names you asked for. What if the list was compiled under false pretenses for some other purpose? Here they are, thanks, come again. I'll bring a list of IP's, some with some sort of curious activity, and i'll throw in a few that I want info on for some other reason. Here you go...

Before the switch, i was trying to think of things that might be a disadvantage of leaving the large company as my provider and going with a smaller ISP/reseller . all i could really think of at the time was lesser customer support (which really does stink, btw), it wasn't until the news of the similar case with 3web, distributel, and acn with the Recoil movie that it dawned on me. ...and then a few weeks later this situation came up with TSI. It's all too obvious now that there are huge disadvantages to being with a smaller provider. i.e. price is not the only thing that drops when you switch.

You can and no doubt will be targeted even with another company. Remember pretty much any ISP in Canada is using Rogers, BHell and Telus last mile or are a direct reseller or their services so good luck with your move if trying to avoid being a target.. People need to consider the rationale before they make a rash move. Hopefully after the troll gets severely beaten up from these cases there won't be a next time but anything can still happen.

Dr Facts
@gc.ca

Dr Facts to ju1ce

Anon

to ju1ce
Pirating is downloading movies and then selling them, sharing is downloading the movies and then watching them and deleting.

Voltage should be going after the former but I guess their movies are so lousy that the pirates don't bother so they go after the latter.

It's an important distinction.
Teksanta
join:2012-12-17

Teksanta

Member

I agree. there movies are too bad to go after the people making money from the pirating.

lowest common denominator says they have to go after the average joe.
resa1983
Premium Member
join:2008-03-10
North York, ON

resa1983 to TSI Marc

Premium Member

to TSI Marc
Its very possible that Teksavvy is worried about losing their neutral status in this issue. Carriers have to walk a fine line between neutral and being complicit. Stepping over that fine line (which no one knows where its at yet due to new laws) could be disastrous for them.

I mean, just look at Verizon. Copytrolls sued them after they fought the court over telling them to hand over subscriber info. They would have received their costs to get subscriber info back from the Copytroll, but with them directly being sued, who knows.

Think about how much this has probably already cost Teksavvy.. They've done almost all the work already (tracking down the sub names for those 92 accounts now), so they're already out the time and money... Which they'll get back as long as they remain a neutral party..

UK_Dave said in IRC earlier that its probably cost them at least $100,000 already. Based on Comcast's $45/per IP (thanks to @fightcopytrolls for that), that $100k amount might not be too far off.. And thats with Comcast just receiving the order after the fact, and not fighting it. Teksavvy's been in contact with them for over a month during the draft period of the order, and even appeared in court yesterday...

Teksavvy may not be able to afford to keep dragging this out on their own dime (ie fighting the orders), stay solvent and keep the ISP running. The sooner Teksavvy is out of it and gets costs back, the sooner the company is financially stable (I'm not saying they are or aren't stable as I just don't know either way), but these costs have to be hurting them at least some.

Which may be why CIPPIC is stepping up now. A new precedent needs to be set (other than BMG), so that this doesn't move on to additional ISPs as well, and we get the crazy and constant copytroll lawsuits up here that the US has right now.
UK_Dave
join:2011-01-27
Powassan, ON

1 recommendation

UK_Dave

Member

+1 resa. really. +1

We would all like to have seen Marc stand up and fight this. We're used to following that banner and banging our drums.

We would all like to suddenly see Marc turn around now and say "OK, I bought you time under extreme duress, but now I can fight it".

Truth is. I don't think they can.

TSI was chosen for this case, because they have the shallowest pockets and least resources.

Forget the nuanced discussions on finer points of law or opinion for a moment - these guys want one thing, and one thing only.

A mailing list of people to threaten, knowing some will pay up.

The costs to fight disclosure, could quite literally be terminal to TSI.

...and the bully's know it.

We need to find a way to fight this from an oblique angle. And a CIPPAC approach might be that way.

I know, we've covered this before, and the same folks will come back and say how it could be challenged.

Well you know what. Do it. Become a hero. Because you will be if you succeed.

"There's none so bent on violence in a conflict, as the armchair General."
peterboro (banned)
Avatars are for posers
join:2006-11-03
Peterborough, ON

peterboro (banned) to Grappler

Member

to Grappler
said by Grappler:

"Burden of Proof" is the duty imposed on any given party, and as I stated in a earlier post, the plaintiff has the initial "burden of proof". After this, if required, the defendant has the "burden of proof". I say "if required" because there is always the chance that the defendant can shoot enough holes in the plaintiff's case, during cross examination, to have the matter dismissed without having to present their side.

Think of this as the onus or requirement to show something happened. The defendant rarely has this requirement only the requirement to raise doubt that it did. To confuse the matter there are reverse onus proceedings like one I am doing now where one need only present a prima facie case on its face in the pleadings and the defendant now has the burden of proof to demonstrate the event did not happen.
said by Grappler:

"Preponderance of Evidence" is the standard that is then applied to the evidence in its totality after all parties have had their say whereby the courts then make their decision based on that evidence. Yes, it is a much lower standard than required in criminal law.

Think of this as a threshold or a prerequisite to "win" or prevail that different courts and quasi-judicial bodies want. Like "on the balance of probabilities" or "beyond a reasonable doubt" or " more likely than not" or “in the absence of evidence to the contrary”. The Supreme Court of Canada has consistently upheld that in civil cases there is only one standard of proof being "on the balance of probabilities"

El Quintron
Cancel Culture Ambassador
Premium Member
join:2008-04-28
Tronna

El Quintron to resa1983

Premium Member

to resa1983
said by resa1983:

Its very possible that Teksavvy is worried about losing their neutral status in this issue. Carriers have to walk a fine line between neutral and being complicit. Stepping over that fine line (which no one knows where its at yet due to new laws) could be disastrous for them.

I don't believe it's called "Safe Harbor" in Canada, but there's a very similar clause here that was established via the notice-and-notice system we have already.

If Teksavvy did fight this, they'd be renouncing on Safe Harbor, and rather than go after the individual infringers, the copyright owners could just go after Teksavvy for every infringement commited on its network.

Some more lawyerly folks might want to chime in to clarify but that's how I understand it.

MFido
Montreal
join:2012-10-19

MFido to TSI Marc

Member

to TSI Marc
I would say Teksavvy choose the right path!

Confirmed by 4 of the more consistent clear minds on this forum: mlerner, resa1983, UK-Dave, Merovingian
HammerofGawd
join:2012-06-30
23332

HammerofGawd to TSI Marc

Member

to TSI Marc
Regardless I think we can all agree that voltage can go to blazes and deserves to be bankrupted somehow.
resa1983
Premium Member
join:2008-03-10
North York, ON

resa1983

Premium Member

said by HammerofGawd:

Regardless I think we can all agree that voltage can go to blazes and deserves to be bankrupted somehow.

I think EVERYONE can agree to that at least.
JonyBelGeul
Premium Member
join:2008-07-31

JonyBelGeul to Grappler

Premium Member

to Grappler
said by Grappler:

said by sbrook:

People keep referring to burden of proof. burden of proof does not apply in a civil suit. It is all about preponderance of evidence.

With all due respect to your past knowledge, excellent posts, etc. do not confuse the two terms yourself.

"Burden of Proof" is the duty imposed on any given party, and as I stated in a earlier post, the plaintiff has the initial "burden of proof". After this, if required, the defendant has the "burden of proof". I say "if required" because there is always the chance that the defendant can shoot enough holes in the plaintiff's case, during cross examination, to have the matter dismissed without having to present their side.

"Preponderance of Evidence" is the standard that is then applied to the evidence in its totality after all parties have had their say whereby the courts then make their decision based on that evidence. Yes, it is a much lower standard than required in criminal law.

Clarity itself. Evidently, I could not put it as clearly as you just did.

In the case here, Voltage presented evidence that was found to be inaccurate in a few instances. A defendant would then only need to point to these inaccuracies - to poke holes in the plaintiff's claim. The main argument is that the evidence in question is very exact, therefore this exact nature is the threshold for its admission. In other words, it's an absolute. Either or. 1 or 0. True or false. However, the inaccuracies were found not for all instances, but only a few. The bulk of instances appeared to be accurate, and could still be admitted.

But deeper still, we have the original evidence to look at. Namely, if the movies were in fact verified directly in all instances. One poster here suggested that the time required for this was insufficient, therefore a more likely explanation was the movies themselves were not verified, but instead a proxy was used for this purpose. The proxy is the hashcode used to check block integrity after download within the BitTorrent protocol. A proxy is like associating a person to an IP, the IP is not the person. Thus, the hashcode is not the movie, weakening the evidence. A counter argument to this is that statistically, it's very very very unlikely that the same hashcode can be found for a block from different data. A counter argument to that is that the hashcode check software must be checked regularly to make sure that the hashcode check software used is still checking hashcode for the movie in question. If no regular checks were done here, then we can argue that too much trust was put in the software, not enough on the person doing the checking and subsequently testifying for the whole thing. After all, it's humans that testify, not machines.

Then there's hearsay, expertise, methodology, history of the plaintiff with similar legal action, etc.

This is all for the poking holes in the plaintiff's claim. For the defendant, he could then present evidence that further poke holes in the plaintiff's claim. For example, the cafe owner with a public wifi.

The point is, burden of proof comes first, then comes preponderance of evidence, i.e., the arguments. The further point is that at some point down the line where evidence is presented is where the evidence must be sufficient just to convince the court to order disclosure of further evidence. This would be the hashcode/movie, and the hashcode/movie checking software -- IP. At this time, it doesn't look too good for Voltage.

A Lurker
that's Ms Lurker btw
Premium Member
join:2007-10-27
Wellington N

A Lurker

Premium Member

said by JonyBelGeul:

The point is, burden of proof comes first, then comes preponderance of evidence, i.e., the arguments. The further point is that at some point down the line where evidence is presented is where the evidence must be sufficient just to convince the court to order disclosure of further evidence. This would be the hashcode/movie, and the hashcode/movie checking software -- IP. At this time, it doesn't look too good for Voltage.

The catch is that what you discuss here would most likely come up in a court case - AFTER - IPs and matching names are released. Most people believe that Voltage has no intention of going to court for their 10K. They want to send letters out trying to scare people into paying. In the UK this number has been (I believe) 25-40%. This will allow them to send an even bigger list to Rogers / Bell / Cogeco. It's a business.
Expand your moderator at work
JonyBelGeul
Premium Member
join:2008-07-31

JonyBelGeul to A Lurker

Premium Member

to A Lurker

Re: Why we are not opposing motion on Monday.

said by A Lurker:

said by JonyBelGeul:

The point is, burden of proof comes first, then comes preponderance of evidence, i.e., the arguments. The further point is that at some point down the line where evidence is presented is where the evidence must be sufficient just to convince the court to order disclosure of further evidence. This would be the hashcode/movie, and the hashcode/movie checking software -- IP. At this time, it doesn't look too good for Voltage.

The catch is that what you discuss here would most likely come up in a court case - AFTER - IPs and matching names are released. Most people believe that Voltage has no intention of going to court for their 10K. They want to send letters out trying to scare people into paying. In the UK this number has been (I believe) 25-40%. This will allow them to send an even bigger list to Rogers / Bell / Cogeco. It's a business.

I agree. But then whatever is being said here must also be associated with the IP, the person, the movie, the hashcode, etc. And this evidence must also be just as exact and reliable as the other evidence it is associated with. Simply discussing the case, how the law works, or basically everything else but direct evidence is useless to Voltage. So posters who are directly involved or who know somebody who is should be careful not to divulge any information which could be used to strengthen Voltage's claim, regardless of whether they did in fact commit or not the allegations as stated. (Remember, some persons who were directly involved - who received an email from TSI telling them their name came up - did not in fact commit the allegations because they just weren't a TSI customer at the time of the alleged infraction. But this is just one first-line kind of proof of innocence. There are more ways than this to be genuinely innocent.) Name, IP, address, activities, that kind of thing.
HammerofGawd
join:2012-06-30
23332

HammerofGawd to TSI Marc

Member

to TSI Marc
Once the dust settles and voltage's bullying is tossed out, cannot they be counter-sued for launching a frivolous lawsuit that they knew or ought to have known was never going to win for the possible purposes of extorting monies?
Expand your moderator at work
Gruesome
join:2007-10-18
Milton, ON

Gruesome to Anon

Member

to Anon

Re: Why we are not opposing motion on Monday.

Everyone will have to decide for themselves whether Teksavvy did enough to protect the personal information entrusted to them.
I'm leaning towards not enough at this point
Howard Knopf has a blog post about it here
»goo.gl/b3PWT
Expand your moderator at work
jkoblovsky
join:2011-09-27
Keswick, ON

jkoblovsky to resa1983

Member

to resa1983

Re: Why we are not opposing motion on Monday.

said by resa1983:

Its very possible that Teksavvy is worried about losing their neutral status in this issue. Carriers have to walk a fine line between neutral and being complicit.

True, but questions on a much general level need to be with respect to responsibilities ISPs have under law to protect account information. Safe harbor positions were never intended to be used to exempt from that responsibility. There is a fine line, and consumers deserve need to know where that line is.

I had an excellent interview with David Ellis today, I will be posting next week, and in the interview he did state that on the user side, there is a lot of confusion on exactly what is going on. Over the course of the next several weeks I will be doing my best to try and get answers to a lot of questions people have from experts.

If anyone has questions they wish answered please e-mail the show cdntechnetwork at gmail dot com I'll do my best over the next several weeks to rally the troops of experts to appear on the podcast. No personal information will be used in the show, your questions will remain anonymous.

In any case, and after speaking with Ellis who was in the court room yesterday, it's probable with the CIPPIC intervention that no information will be submitted to Voltage (my own assumption based on what actually happened in the court and how the court responded to the CIPPIC's letter). But the CIPPIC can't and probably will not intervene in every single case surrounding subscriber information. It's important to ask questions now, and be informed so that you can better protect your rights.
UK_Dave
join:2011-01-27
Powassan, ON

2 edits

UK_Dave to Gruesome

Member

to Gruesome
Gruesome, I like your posts. I have done for the last few days.

And of course, you are absolutely right. Everyone will need to make their own decision as to whether TSI remains their ISP of choice. Personally, the lack of tie-in contracts is why I came to them. I knew if they did something I didn't like, I could bugger off and spend my dollars somewhere else - or not at all (as I did with TV).

Now that doesn't stop me wanting everyone to stay - because I believe a stronger TSI is stronger competition to the incumbents - in the hope that stronger competition leads to more choice. That way maybe more of us can pick and mix EXACTLY what we want from our service providers in the future. Maybe one day we will be able to choose from ones with 90 days logs, ones with no logs, ones with cheaper support yourself options, ones with pricier high grade response times. And a lot of other stuff I can't even think of.

Suppose it turns out (later, much later, when Marc can post freely again, and the judgment has been made) TSI stepped back from fighting this in return for buying time. With that time, CIPPIC was able to get organised (remember how close a call that was in court), I believe their letter of intent to intervene landed on the Judge that same morning. Any later, and I believe disclosure would have been granted. It was that fine a line.

Suppose as a result of this time, and the judgement, there is still no disclosure granted in January. Voltage are sent packing. That maintains a huge defence of precendent against these trolls. The last one bought us 7 years.

Would you still have the view of TSI rolling over too easily? There are a few on the boards who would say "Yes, it's the principal". *"I expect TSI and Marc to go in there, fight, and not stop till they win, or they disappear in a shit tsunami.

And you know what. I think I might have been one of them - were it not that in the back of my mind, I know I'd be grinning like a monkey in a barrel full of bananas knowing that retreat helped win the war despite it not being the glorious death or victory battle I might have wanted to see.

Cheers
Dave

* EDIT 14.12
tired
join:2010-12-12

tired

Member

said by UK_Dave:

Suppose it turns out (later, much later, when Marc can post freely again, and the judgment has been made) TSI stepped back from fighting this in return for buying time. With that time, CIPPAC was able to get organised (remember how close a call that was in court), I believe their letter of intent to intervene landed on the Judge that same morning.

Suppose when TSI was first contacted 6 weeks ago about this impending lawsuit they knew they wouldn't have the resources to fight it and had immediately contacted CIPPIC, or even their fellow ISPs, and asked for help so that when the official papers were received 2 weeks ago they were ready to fight this thing or to push for the same adjournment because they needed more time to respond?

It seems to me that all this bought was time for TSI's customers who will get nasty letters an opportunity to spend thousands of dollars to try to prevent their names from getting released to a company that's going to extort them for thousands of dollars. I'm not sure anyone thinks that is of value?

I still think TSI has a responsibility to ensure that all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed before handing over the identity of any of its subscribers. There isn't an expectation that TSI will defend piracy, just to ensure the court has the right information to ask the right questions to ensure that justice will be possible before names are handed over and people, both innocent and guilty, are extorted. That's my understanding of what happened with the ISPs in the BMG suit.

TSI did more than Distributel, which should be commended. And I'm sure they acted in what they honestly feel (or at least felt) after exploring options and listening to counsel is the right way for themselves and their customers. But I think they could have done more, and I'm still disappointed that they didn't.
UK_Dave
join:2011-01-27
Powassan, ON

UK_Dave

Member

Suppose when TSI was first contacted 6 weeks ago about this impending lawsuit they knew they wouldn't have the resources to fight it and had immediately contacted CIPPIC,
----------------------------------------

Who's to say they didn't?

And CIPPIC said "We need time".
The Mongoose
join:2010-01-05
Toronto, ON

The Mongoose

Member

said by UK_Dave:

Suppose when TSI was first contacted 6 weeks ago about this impending lawsuit they knew they wouldn't have the resources to fight it and had immediately contacted CIPPIC,
----------------------------------------

Who's to say they didn't?

And CIPPIC said "We need time".

+1

TwiztedZero
Nine Zero Burp Nine Six
Premium Member
join:2011-03-31
Toronto, ON

1 edit

TwiztedZero to UK_Dave

Premium Member

to UK_Dave
said by UK_Dave:

And CIPPIC said "We need time".



Need this. Need to fight. They told Zathras