TekSavvy → Re: Voltage court case

For an interesting take on this matter, read Howard Knopf's blog, EXCESS COPYRIGHT. The most interesting quote from his latest post (»www.excesscopyright.blog ··· 013.html) is, "the real issue here in many respects is Teksavvy's vigorous and expensive effort to date apparently directed at not taking a position on protecting its customers' privacy rights, and instead relying on a law school clinic to do the job.". I can't help but agree "vigorously" with him. Distributel stood up to trolls by raising fundamental technical issues. Why is Teksavvy hiding behind the skirts of a law school clinic?

I for one will not be moving to Teksavvy anytime soon after thoughts about it,it's not an option anymore. Now not to say that the one of the big companies I'm with now *caugh* Rogers would be any better at fighting for us but that day has yet to come, until then I'm sticking with Rogers for now.

Problem is they filed just hours after NGN put their file permanently on hold as a result of this case. They hadn't received notice of NGNs filing when they filed. So in effect, Distributel's sticking up for their customers is for naught as it was already on hold. They might even need to refile it when the case reactivates, as the case was on hold..

Not to mention, NGN has subscriber data already for affected users.

I realize that, but at least Distributel did something other than spend $190k apparently to receive legal advice on how to protect their own asses whilst rolling dice that CIPPIC would be granted intervener status. Had CIPPIC NOT been granted intervener status, Teksavvy's customers would have been left hanging in the wind, but Teksavvy would be just fine, thank you very much.

From what was I remember hearing explained in court from the hearing before yesterdays, the 190k was for ip correlation only, and did not include lawyers fees - which tsi knew they could never recoup.

This is all off memory, but tsi originally received 2200 ips for correlation, and with the mistakes found, they went over them multiple times.
An ISP in the US charges $45 per IP correlation, while Rogers and Bell are much higher than that I heard - something like 100 to 150? So its not surprising I guess that the numbers are at 190k.... Tsi's avg cost for ip correlation is just under $90 per which isn't completely out to lunch.

Thanks for reply. If that's the case, then I stand corrected, as far as my respective comment on that matter. However, as to the approach TSI has taken, this does nothing to change my view.

$180,000 for correlation of 2000 ip addresses is totally out to lunch.

Mike

Its more than some US ISPs who have more experience in doing these IP correlations (due to how prolific the P2P lawsuits are in the US), but its less than other Canadian ISPs who don't do IP correlations every week.

I'd be curious as to what Distributel's costs were for the # of IPs they had to correlate, just as a comparison. Or Acanac, or 3web.. Who else was in the NGN case?
Have they even been paid yet?

I agree. It should be more. They are likely out of pocket.

But, I don't think this is what you are stating here.

We went over costs in various posts in this forum, and the Canadian broadband forum, that you are well aware of since you partook in those conversations about the costs (you toked the costs ).

Also, you are well aware that the work involved wasn't just simply pulling the names of 2000 people associated with 2000 IP's.

There were errors, re-correlation like 5 times, more errors, untrackable IP's where the retention time expired, charges for 3rd party sending and tracking of Email notices having been read/received. Corrections to people who got notices in error. The website to inform people what is going on. Consultation fee's in all this to make sure they are following the law and not just blindly following what an American corporation is telling them to do and give. Then there is the time of all people involved, techs, phone lines, phone calls, owners time, overhead, resources, legal, court time, travel time, ancillary charges, and more.

Also, keep in mind this is a mom&pop shop. Not a multi-billion dollar corporation who didn't give a damn if they gave wrong subscriber info out. Nor are they setup as a business to just be able to randomly pull up 2000 IP's when ever someone comes knocking. They went over the data about 5 times to try and not make any errors (though.. maybe, just maybe, there still could be some errors since they claimed they already made errors).

All of which you have magically determined in free.

Bell and Rogers charge 3x the 90$ per IP that TSI is charging, even when the 3 IP's are for a single customer.

What do you think Bell or Rogers bill would be like for 2,000 IP's?

Why not call up their legal department and ask them what the cost would be?

Considering that they have to pull people off real work to do it, and that they have a whole bunch of people doing it, and each IP address they verify gets re-verified in detail and signed off by multiple people (including the CEO), and that nearly half the IPs that Voltage provided were incorrect, $90 per IP doesn't sound all that unreasonable. We'd have to see how the cost is broken down.

If I was an ISP and bottom feeders like these wanted me to do a bunch of work that did nothing whatsoever for my business, I'd inflate the price as much as I possibly could get away with. When the ISP staff are doing this grunt-work, they aren't doing the jobs for which they were hired, which one can not unreasonably assume will negatively impact service, otherwise, they would not have the jobs in the first place. An ISP should reasonably be able to expect that they would be compensated in such a manner that they can provide the demanded information without impacting service. All the sudden, the price goes up, way up.