MONTREAL — Bell Media and Quebecor have had a "disagreement" that could end up in court over Bell's recent merger of Crave and The Movie Network.
In the meantime, Videotron has been left off the list of 39 TV providers that give TMN (now Crave) TV subscribers access to Crave online. Videotron is telling its subscribers that Bell is refusing to grant access to crave.ca, but Videotron is maintaining access to the TV channels' video-on-demand content on its platforms.
Bell, meanwhile, blames Videotron, and is suing the provider for damages including statutory damages of "not less than $100 million."
"In advance of the launch of the new Crave, we were able to negotiate distribution agreements with all major Canadian BDUs for our VOD content, except Videotron," Bell Media vice-president of communications Scott Henderson told Cartt.ca. "We’ve filed a copyright and trademark infringement claim against Videotron because they’ve simply gone ahead and made the new Crave VOD content available to their customers without authorization."
The statement of claim, filed to the Federal Court on November 2nd, says a distribution agreement dated July 1, 2013, allowing Videotron to distribute The Movie Network and HBO Canada content on demand, was "terminated by Videotron in 2016 and is no longer in force." Despite the deal's expiry, Videotron was allowed to continue distributing the content as they negotiated a new deal. With the merger of the TMN and Crave brands on November 1st, Bell told Videotron it could not continue to make the VOD content available after October 31st.
According to Bell's claim, it presented an offer in August allowing Videotron to distribute the new merged Crave, but despite follow-ups on Oct. 16, 22, 24 and 30, the only response it got was that Videotron was evaluating its options.
Bell says Videotron "currently does not have any rights" to on-demand content from Crave, The Movie Network or HBO Canada. Its lawsuit seeks compensation for copyright and trademark infringement including statutory damages "in the amount of $20,000 per work" for about 2,700 individual episodes and movies (or $54 million) or "not less than $100 million." The statement of claim includes an 89-page list of the works, which includes episodes of HBO series like Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, True Blood and Game of Thrones, and movies like Bon Cop Bad Cop 2 and Game Night.
Bell is also seeking compensation for loss of goodwill for having "confused and misled the Canadian public" by providing "only a portion of the programming content that Bell Media offers in connection with the Bell VOD trademarks. The public is thereby being provided by Videotron an inferior subscription service" (than what's offered and marketed by Bell Media). Because Bell is advertising this as a merger, and Videotron is offering only VOD content formerly included with TMN, Bell is arguing that Videotron subscribers will think less of Bell Media's service.
Videotron, meanwhile, said it is "still in negotiations with Bell" and could not comment on the issue at all. It has until December 5th to file a response to the claim.
Bell says Videotron has at least 65,000 subscribers to TMN/Crave's VOD content.
The CRTC's standstill rule requires the continued distribution of a TV programming service even without an agreement when the two sides have failed to reach a deal for renewal, to prevent the kind of channel blackouts used as pressure tactics on U.S. providers. But that rule applies only to linear services, which Videotron continues to distribute legally, not online services.
Bell and Quebecor have a long history of disputes over distribution that have ended up before the CRTC or the courts. In 2005, Videotron sued Bell complaining its ExpressVu satellite service did not do enough to stop signal piracy. It eventually won that suit. Bell's carriage of Quebecor's TVA Sports and Videotron's carriage of Bell's RDS both had to be settled by CRTC arbitration, and Quebecor is appealing the former to the Federal Court of Appeal.
Videotron only finally got TV anywhere rights to TSN and RDS a year ago, years after other providers offered live streams of their sports events, and there's still no similar agreement for CTV, Discovery, Space or most other Bell Media channels.
Before the sports rights, Videotron had VOD and TV-anywhere rights to only one Bell Media service: The Movie Network. This fallout marks another step backwards in rights deals between the two, to the detriment of Videotron's subscribers.
