EDMONTON — In a decision released April 30, the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta has thrown out an injunction request by Allarco Entertainment, owner of Super Channel, which sought to have retailers Best Buy and Staples, among others, blocked from selling set-top boxes the broadcaster claimed were being sold as pirate devices.
Super Channel announced in March it had filed an application for an injunction against Best Buy, Staples, London Drugs and Canada Computers, which followed its lawsuit filed in September 2019.
The pay-TV operator claimed the retailers’ staff had allegedly counselled customers on how to use the set-top boxes to steal pay-TV content. Allarco’s claim was supported by audio and video evidence documenting interactions between its investigator and the retailers’ employees.
In giving his reasons for judgment, Alberta Justice M. J. Lema writes: “I find no material evidence of encouragement and guidance or at least any causing harm to Allarco and, in any case, no evidence of any continuing such conduct or any material risk of it. I also find that the units in question have legitimate uses and that any post-purchase misuse by consumers cannot be blamed on the retailers.”
He adds elsewhere in his decision: “Allarco’s evidence here was limited to dealings by the retailers’ employees with one person i.e. Mr. Best, its ‘investigative shopper’, who travelled the country for over a year, posing as a customer interested in buying one of those boxes and in using it to access pirated content, and secretly recording his interactions. In other words, a person who, to all appearances, was already disposed to content piracy.”
Allarco provided no evidence of the retailers’ employees dealing with any other customer or discussing the potential use of the set-top boxes for pirating content beyond their dealings with Best, says Justice Lema.
In his conclusion, Lema writes: “Allarco has not shown a serious case to be tried or that any of the other injunction factors favour it. Accordingly, I dismiss its request for the requested injunction…I also dismiss its request for a mandatory (notice-to-previous-purchasers) injunction, which assumed the granting of the no-more-sales injunction.”
