Source – Canadian cable companies have ratcheted up their war on piracy by launching a new legal battle. The effort has already seen Bell, Rogers and Quebecor’s Videotron search a Montreal software developer’s home and interrogate him for more than nine hours.
“The whole experience was horrifying,” says Adam Lackman, founder of TVAddons and defendant in a copyright infringement lawsuit launched by the television giants. “It felt like the kind of thing you would have expected to have happened in the Soviet Union.”
Telecoms and content creators Bell, Rogers and Videotron began their piracy battle last year by filing a lawsuit against Canadian dealers who sell “free TV” Android boxes — devices that can be used to stream pirated content.
Now the companies are also targeting Lackman and TVAddons — a library of hundreds of apps known as add-ons. Once downloaded on the Android box or a computer with added software, some of the add-ons — such as Exodus and 1Channel — allow people easy access to pirated movies, TV shows and even live television.
The plaintiffs’ law firm, Smart & Biggar, said it couldn’t comment on the case at this point and that the appeal hearing will likely take place this fall.
As for Lackman, he plans to continue his defense. “At this point, there is no choice but to fight,” he said in a written statement to CBC News.
To help pay the legal bills, he’s trying to raise money on the fundraising site Indiegogo.
Lackman has also set up a new TVAddons website and Twitter account and tells CBC News his add-ons are still up and running.
There You go kids, Cable Companies fighting tooth and nail to squeeze the life and the last measly cable penny, out of you. How noble of these Tel coms that care about customer service and their consumers so much they band together to interrogate a young software developer for 9 hours about why he’s enabled people to watch their shitty shows for free.
Do jewelry stores sue ski shops for selling ski masks to people that hold up their stores?
TV is in major decline and is no longer the pillar of monetary growth and Rogers, Bell and Quebecor know that. Like a tube of toothpaste, they are trying desperately to not look like a bunch of power hungry cheapo’s yet had no problem scaring the shit out of a nerdy computer kid that makes TV add Ons.
This month I got a bill from Rogers saying they were going to jack my cable and last month they sent me a note telling me they were going to charge me through the ass for going over my data plan. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one. They’ll probably take that extra money and put it into the Blue Jays budget to speed up the rebuild right?
