Post Tagged with: "rogers"

GoldTV.biz block

Canadian Copyright Website Blocking Underway As TekSavvy Appeals Federal Court Ruling

Last week I wrote about a federal court ruling that opened the door to copyright website blocking in Canada without Parliament establishing site blocking rules or the involvement of the CRTC. The decision is flawed from both a policy and legal perspective, substituting the views of one judge over Parliament’s judgment and relying on a foreign copyright case that was rendered under markedly different legal rules than those found in Canada. I concluded by noting that the case should be appealed and just over a week later, TekSavvy, the independent ISP that stood alone in contesting the blocking order, did just that. Even as the appeal was launched, however, the major Canadian ISPs began blocking access to the specific webpages identified in the court order.

Read more ›

November 26, 2019 6 comments News
Danger: High Voltage by Rhys A (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/8jQYkS

Federal Court Short-Circuits Voltage Pictures’ Canadian File Sharing Class Action Copyright Lawsuit Strategy

The Federal Court of Canada has strongly rejected an attempt by Voltage Pictures, one of Canada’s most litigious copyright companies, to use a reverse class action lawsuit approach to sue potentially thousands of Canadians. The court ruled that Voltage met none of the requirements for class action certification and in the process confirmed doubts that merely pointing to an IP address is sufficient grounds for a copyright infringement claim. The Voltage strategy was launched in 2016 as it sought certification of the class, a declaration that each member of the class had infringed its copyright, an injunction stopping further infringement, damages, and costs of the legal proceedings (the issues were discussed in this Lawbytes podcast episode with James Plotkin).

Read more ›

November 14, 2019 11 comments News
Rogers on the corner of Robson and Seymour by Jeffery Simpson https://flic.kr/p/hZGAN (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Message Received: Why Unlimited Wireless Plans Show Government’s Emphasis on New Competition is Being Heard

Long available in other countries, “unlimited” wireless plans arrived among the big three carriers in Canada yesterday with Rogers launching new unlimited options that offer 10 GB of data at full speed and unlimited additional data at a far slower speeds of 256Kbps. While some criticize the throttled overage speeds or the inferiority of the Canadian plans when compared to what is available in the U.S., this is a good step for consumers that ration their data each month in fear of incurring significant overage charges. Indeed, the comparative data shows Canadian consumers use less data than consumers elsewhere, particularly subscribers with Rogers, Bell, and Telus. Moreover, with carriers generating more than $1 billion per year in overage fees, the change is not trivial with some analysts characterizing the move as a negative for Canada’s wireless industry.

Read more ›

June 13, 2019 3 comments News
CityTV Videographer by Kurt Bauschardt (CC BY-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/9Sy5Bd

Rogers Calls for Expansion of Media Bailout to Cover Broadcast Organizations…and Thinks Netflix Should Pay For It

My series on previously secret submissions to the Broadcast and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel (earlier posts on Bell, Shaw, and Cogeco) continues with the Rogers submission, [Update: Rogers notes that it posted the submission on its site roughly three months after the submission deadline, so it has not been secret since early April] also obtained under the Access to Information Act. There are several notable aspects to the submission, but perhaps none more than Rogers calling for an expansion of the new tax credit for media organizations by extending the approach to broadcasters and expecting Netflix to help pay for it. The media bailout has attracted considerable criticism, particularly given the government’s implementation that has raised serious independence concerns. Before the recent controversies, Rogers envisioned expanding it:

Read more ›

June 6, 2019 7 comments News
Verizon by Mike Mozart (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/oVfwNQ

“Immediate War Footing”: Phil Lind Recounts the Big Three Battle Against Wireless Competition in Canada

This week’s report that Canada is an outlier on wireless services with carriers generating more revenue per SIM than carriers in other countries and Canadian consumers on the low end of data usage, represents the latest in a long line of similar independent reports that confirm Canada’s status as a high-cost, low usage wireless market. Indeed, a government-commissioned comparative study, CRTC data, OECD data, and Rewheel Research all tell a similar story. Given that there is little to debate about the state of Canadian wireless pricing, the big question is now what Innovation, Science, and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains is prepared to do about it.

A new book from long-time Rogers executive Phil Lind provides insights into the backlash that any significant efforts to inject more competition into the market is likely to face from the incumbent carriers. The book contains several pages recounting the carrier battle in 2013 against Verizon entering the Canadian market with the active support of the then-Harper government. The story pulls back the curtain on lobbying efforts that involve active coordination by top tier executives at each company, active lobbying of MPs, journalists, and market analysts, as well as advertising campaigns designed to fight back against market-opening policy measures. Lind starts the story:

Read more ›

January 24, 2019 3 comments News