In Rogers Media Inc et al v John Doe 1 et al, 2024 FC 1082, the Federal Court (Canada) (the Court) issued the first site-blocking judgment allowing the applicants to simultaneously protect live content in multiple sports leagues and events, and to extend protection over future content for which they can prove ownership without the need to file a new application.

This decision builds upon and represents a favourable evolution over recent Canadian precedents in anti-piracy protection for sports content.¹²³⁴

The applicants were successfully represented by Guillaume Lavoie Ste‑Marie, Christopher A. Guaiani and Nicholas Di Piano of Smart & Biggar’s Montréal office.

Key takeaways

The injunctions granted

On July 9, 2024, the Court issued its public judgment and reasons granting the applicants:

1. A permanent injunction against the unknown pirates behind numerous open and subscription-based online piracy platforms (ie, the John Doe Respondents) who, without authorization from the applicants, provide access to pirated sports streams of National Hockey League (NHL) and National Basketball Association (NBA) games, and Premier League matches.


2. A two-year “wide” injunction by which Canadian Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are required to block their subscribers’ access to pirated streams of NHL, NBA, Premier League and other sports content in real time, that is, as they are identified and notified to them by the applicants.

The mechanism to protect additional content

Previous Canadian site-blocking orders aimed to protect content of a single league. A significant development in the field of site-blocking is the judgment’s inclusion of a mechanism through which the applicants can move to amend the protected sports events and leagues as the applicants’ rights are formalized for the next two years.

In practice, the applicants must secure evidence of their rights over the additional content (e.g., through a confirmatory license) and file a motion seeking an amendment to the list of protected content.

This mechanism was first put in practice on Friday, July 12, 2024, when the Court issued an order to include the highly anticipated final match of the UEFA Euro 2024, taking place the following Sunday.

The Court’s rapid response allowed for the blocking of pirated streams of this event, which would not have been possible in the framework of previous site-blocking initiatives.

The Court then issued a subsequent order, on July 23, 2024, to include events that are in progress, namely Major League Baseball (MLB) games and Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) bouts.

Concluding remarks

While previous site-blocking orders already reflected the Court’s recognition of the damage caused by piracy and the need to bring it to an end, the implementation of these orders highlighted how they could be improved to increase their efficiency while maintaining the safeguards necessary to ensure that the rights of the public and of the ISPs remain protected.

This decision demonstrates the Court’s acknowledgment of the importance of these improvements and is a critical step forward in support of the efforts of rightsholders to protect their copyrighted content in Canada.

References

1. Rogers Media Inc v John Doe 1, 2022 FC 775.

2. Order of Associate Chief Justice Gagné, dated November 21, 2022, T-955-21.

3. Bell Media Inc et al v John Doe 1, 2022 FC 1432.

4. Order of Justice Lafrenière, dated July 18, 2023, T-1253-23.

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