By Ahmad Hathout
BELL MEDIA FILED an application yesterday requesting the Federal Court stop entities that “provide or will provide” unlicensed access to November’s FIFA World Cup soccer tournament.
Bell owns broadcasting rights in Canada to the games, which are expected to run for about a month starting Nov. 20 and will include Canada’s participation, which Bell said in its application is expected to significantly increase interest and viewership in the country.
“A significant number of Canadian consumers are turning to unauthorized, user-friendly, websites and services on the Internet (“Piracy Streaming Platforms”) to access infringing live television content, including soccer content,” reads the application.
“The Defendants operate Unauthorized Streaming Servers that allow users to obtain immediate and unauthorized access to Plaintiffs’ Stations that will broadcast FIFA World Cup Live Matches for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 in Canada,” the application said, adding the 2018 tournament drew 25.8 million Canadian viewers.
The defendants are unidentified in the court document, but the request is broad so as to include unidentified and unknown people “who operate unauthorized streaming servers” that provide access to the games. Bell has collected Internet addresses of where the defendants allegedly operate streaming infrastructure, 99% of which is outside of the country, according to the application.
The language of the document shows Bell believes these streaming entities “will likely” broadcast the games, as they have not taken place yet. That is based, it says, on the allegation that these streaming entities broadcast Bell’s channels, such as TSN and its French-language equivalent RDS, and have previously broadcast Major League Soccer games as early as this month.
In two previous requests going after unlicensed streamers of content, Bell and other broadcasters had already claimed to obtain evidence of the alleged infringement – content that was actively being provided to the public.
The most recent request to the Federal Court was targeting unlicensed streamers of this spring’s NHL hockey playoffs. Bell and other rightsholders filed a request to block the websites of the defendants after claiming they had refused to voluntarily take down the streams.
The court granted the request on a limited basis – both in the length of time and the small number of games left to air from the time of the order to the conclusion of the playoffs. The novel order allowed the broadcasters to block websites of live games in real-time as they popped up, rather than having to get court authorization for each new batch of streams.
Yesterday’s request starts a timer of about two months for Bell to address the alleged infringing streams, including possibly requesting a website blocking order on the infringing infrastructure akin to the NHL order if the defendants do not comply.
