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Ellis: TekSavvy Customers Win Big in Federal Court

David Ellis has a complete review of yesterday’s Federal Court hearing in the Voltage – TekSavvy file sharing case.  The judge sided with TekSavvy in adjourning the case to give CIPPIC the opportunity to have its request to intervene in the case considered.

10 Comments

  1. Good to see the Judge taking a wide view of the issues at hand.

    Seeing Voltage sweat … priceless.

  2. Uncle Wiggily says:

    Ellis’ “review” is effectively an advertorial for Teksavvy, which is still not “stepping up to the plate” to actually oppose this motion, which would probably quickly bring all of this to an abrupt end.

  3. @Uncle “…oppose this motion, which would probably quickly bring all of this to an abrupt end.”

    And how would that bring it to an end? Did you read the article? The Judge is going to hear both sides and it looks like CIPPIC will be the other side. They are much better equipped to handle it.

  4. Uncle Wiggily says:

    @ Crockett:
    “…CIPPIC will be the other side. They are much better equipped to handle it.”
    Not.
    See:
    http://excesscopyright.blogspot.ca/2013/01/some-clarity-on-voltage-and-teksavvy.html

  5. Uncle, that was certainly a good link. Food for thought, and I hope the many aspects of this case are looked at as thoroughly as possible.

    An aside, could TS not have simply released the names as requested? Instead they have made efforts to notify those involved and incurred their own costs of $190K up to this point, which is likely to increase. They are a small company, so this is obviously a hardship. Perhaps this is why Voltage chose them instead of Bell or Shaw?

  6. More thoughts on Teksavvy
    http://dwmw.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/voltages-teksavvy-subscriber-shakedown-part-ii-big-win-for-teksavvy-or-room-for-more/

    The more I consider it, I think TS was chosen as the ISP to approach by Voltage for the reason of being a less bankrolled opponent. $190,000 is a lot for a small business, especially as its only the opening round. The article above proposes a ‘kickstarter’ fund for the legal defense. If TS were to stand up and oppose the motion, I along with many others should be willing to to put our money where our mouth is.

  7. I am now a teksavvy customer becasue of their support of the little guy
    When I found out that Teksavvy is trying to notify it’s customers that are affected, and are requesting more time to do this properly, I was glad to find a business that is being honest with their clients. I called Teksavvy and signed up with them (also got a better deal on my Internet access).

  8. TSI said they wouldn’t oppose Voltage yet the trolls still don’t have what they want, can’t help but wonder if TSI is engaging in some Jedi 3D chess.

    At any rate Voltage must be pretty annoyed with the way things have gone, I imagine their original timetable had them sending letters at this point now they have to brace themselves for some closer scrutiny by a judge and a possible cross-examination by CIPPIC.

    Kudos for the judge for understanding and appreciating how new and important all this stuff is. In the long run Voltage may be doing Canada a favour, a bit like an inoculation; a weak virus is introduced to the body so the autoimmune system can learn how to kill it.

    If CIPPIC gets to ask questions about how Voltage got its IPs I can’t see a judge being all that impressed and the phrase “fishing trip” being applied.

  9. respond
    That’s understandable that cash makes us autonomous. But how to act when one doesn’t have money? The only one way is to try to get the loan and just student loan.

  10. Now that we’ve seen how Distributel responded in a similar situation (which was to oppose the motion), I’m even more doubtful that Teksavvy’s non-response is prudent or in the best interest of their customers or even meeting their responsibility to their customers. I think Howard Knoff’s blog on the topic casts Teksavvy in a rather bad light. I think that Teksavvy’s decision to step aside and dump all of the burden on CIPPIC is a dereliction of their duty as a service provider.