CEG-TEK NOW WORKING WITH CANADIAN ISPS.

I am not licensed to practice law in Canada, and my knowledge (as far as I am able to share) is limited to U.S. Copyright Law, and the states in which I am licensed.

That being said, I have received more than just a few inquiries from those of you who have received “DMCA Copyright Infringement Notices” from your ISPs in Canada and Australia, and I thought it was time to clarify which ISPs appear to be “working” with Ira Siegel (CEG-TEK), and what their capabilities appear to be.

HOW CAN CEG-TEK SEND OUT LETTERS TO CANADIAN CITIZENS, AND WHICH CANADIAN ISPs APPEAR TO BE WORKING WITH CEG-TEK?

So far, infringement notices began to be sent out to Canadians under a loophole which allowed U.S. copyright holders to send infringement notices to Canadian subscribers.  While many have received these notices, it appears to me that CEG-TEK is focusing on the following ISPs:

Bell Canada
Rogers Communications (a.k.a. Rogers Cable)
Shaw Communications Inc. (a.k.a. Shaw Cablesystems G.P., or “sjrb.ca”)
ACN Canada
Electronic Box Inc.
TELUS Communications Company
Start Communications (a.k.a. “start.ca”)
TekSavvy Solutions Inc.

Now obviously there are others out there, but these seem to be where the focus of the letters seem to be going out.  Also, remember that CEG-TEK spends a large amount of time recruiting ISPs to sign on to their “cause” to eliminate piracy.  I remember how happy they were when in the U.S., they got COX Communications to start working with them.  No doubt, they are working to recruit more and more ISPs every day, and these few ISPs seem to be the Canadian ISPs that CEG-TEK appears to be regularly using to send out the DMCA settlement demand letters.

WHAT DO THE CANADIAN ISPs [WHO WORK WITH CEG-TEK] APPEAR TO BE PROVIDING THEM?

Originally, I expected that because of the Canadian loophole, that CEG-TEK was sending these “blind,” meaning, not knowing who the downloader is.  But, because of recent trends (where CEG-TEK is now picking up “additional cases” which were downloaded by that same user sometimes weeks or months ago), I am now understanding that certain Canadian ISPs (my best guess, Bell Canada, Rogers, Shaw, and possibly the others) are working with CEG-TEK to provide them 1) geolocation data as to where the downloads are taking place, and/or 2) lists of past IP addresses which have been leased to that internet user / subscriber over the past twelve months (or, whatever that ISPs “IP Retention Policy” before they purge the IP address data for older records).

Thus, Canadian CEG-TEK cases are starting to look and act more like U.S. CEG-TEK cases as far as them having the ability to identify who the subscriber is, and CEG-TEK being able to “look back in time” to see what other bittorrent downloads belonging to their many clients [that their bots tracked on the bittorrent networks realtime weeks or even months ago] these subscribers participated in.

WHAT ARE YOUR CONSIDERATIONS AS TO WHETHER TO IGNORE OR SETTLE WHEN YOU LIVE OUTSIDE OF THE U.S.:

If the Canadian accused of downloading copyrighted materials via bittorrent is concerned that maybe they will be named and served as a defendant in a U.S. federal court, and they have a reputation that they must preserve (meaning, they have little-to-no risk tolerance of having their name become associated with being part of a pornography or piracy lawsuit), AND THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER IS A “COPYRIGHT TROLL,” (meaning, they have sued John Doe Defendants in the U.S. courts, or they have made known that they intend to sue defendants who ignore the DMCA copyright infringement letters that are sent to accused internet users), ONLY THEN does it make sense to settle a CEG-TEK claim against you.

Why?  Because as soon as an individual is named and served as a defendant in a U.S. lawsuit, there are many “spiders” and “robots” which comb the U.S. District Court (federal) court cases, and report and index the names of the court cases on the various search engines.  The effect of these “spiders” on a Canadian is that information on the lawsuit gets posted on the internet and remains there forever.  That way, if someone (e.g., an employer, a creditor, or someone who wants to dig up information on a particular person) does an internet search for that person’s name, then that person’s name and his involvement in the lawsuit will show up as one of the top entries on the search engine’s results, along with the case information.

And to make matters worse (which is why I would like to see some discretion on the part of the websites NOT to index the names of defendants in search engine results), even if that accused defendant did not do the download but was merely the account holder when the download allegedly occurred, or EVEN IF THAT DEFENDANT FIGHTS THE CHARGES AND WINS — FOREVER, THAT “NAMED” DEFENDANT WILL HAVE THE FACT THAT THEY WERE IMPLICATED IN A COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT LAWSUIT FOR PORNOGRAPHY OR PIRACY will have their reputations tarnished because the lawsuit will show up in the search engine results.

This is the most powerful leverage a copyright holder has over an accused defendant, namely, that even if he fights the case and wins, his reputation will forever be tarnished, and for this reason alone people settle the claims against them, even before there is a lawsuit.  I have spoken to hundreds (if not thousands of accused defendants) over the years, and this is the primary reason people (even those outside of the U.S.) settle.

[Personally, this is why I would like to see the laws changed to make it a crime (or more likely, very heavy civil fines, penalties, or sanctions) to name and serve a defendant without having a higher threshold of evidence (e.g., “clear and convincing” rather than “more likely than not”) that it was them who did the crime they are accused of.  Too many families have had their reputations ruined because some overzealous attorney accused them of a crime they did not commit.]

Because of the leverage a copyright holder yields over an accused defendant that they may sue, this is why I read the press releases and follow the financial lives of many of the copyright holders — so that I can properly predict what they will or will not do in the future.  This is also why I make such a large distinction on this blog and when discussing cases with potential clients of distinguishing those copyright holders who are “copyright trolls” (those who have sued in the past, or are likely to sue in the future) versus those who have not yet sued in the U.S. federal courts, and those who (in my opinion) will never sue.  That way, at least I can properly advise clients as to which copyright holders pose the greatest risks, and which copyright holders they can ignore based on who the copyright holders are, what they have done in the past, and what they have publicly stated (in court cases, motions, press releases, and on website articles) that they will do in the future.

IN SUMMARY:

So for those of you who live in Canada, or Australia, or whatever countries the U.S. copyright holders will go next to enforce their rights, please be level-headed when receiving these infringement notices from CEG-TEK and the like. Don’t call the copyright holder or CEG-TEK and argue whether you are “guilty” or not, because their job is merely to collect a settlement from you.  Rather, contact an attorney (me, or someone else who knows the operation of CEG-TEK and the tendencies of the specific copyright holder), and determine whether you are dealing with what I refer to as a “copyright troll” or not.  Assess your risks, and proceed accordingly down the “settle” or “ignore” route we discuss on our calls.

Once again, the main consideration as to why people settle is if you have a copyright holder who is a “copyright troll,” and you are concerned that you will be named and served as a defendant in a U.S. lawsuit, and that your involvement in that lawsuit (whether or not you are found guilty) will tarnish your reputation abroad in a search engine when someone searches your name when applying for a job, etc.  Otherwise, learn who your copyright holder is and if there is a low risk of them suing, save your money.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: I personally find it silly to see attorneys place disclaimers on website articles, but here it is actually appropriate.  In this article, I am not suggesting that any person ignore a settlement demand letter that is sent to them, nor am I suggesting that they settle the claims against them.  I am also merely stating my thoughts about the likelihood of being sued so that they can evaluate their options and the risks and rewards of each course of action.  These are not legal opinions, nor are they to be considered advice to act upon or not act upon. 

Every person’s situation is different, and every person has a slightly different set of circumstances that can affect whether the best course of action is to ignore, fight, or settle, and every copyright holder similarly makes the same financial risk-reward analysis of whether it makes financial sense to take a particular action.  Often, lawyers take actions which do not make financial sense for an alternative reason, e.g., to get a judgement in a particular location against a poor person, NOT to ever collect that judgement, but as a trophy or a weapon to show the next set of would-be defendants that he is ready, able, and willing to pursue a particular line of attack against them as just as they did to so-and-so.  The opinions stated here are my own calculations based on my own understanding of the circumstances.

[2017 UPDATE: Carl Crowell has created a new entity called RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT which has reverse-engineered CEG-TEK’s proprietary DMCA copyright infringement notice system.  Many of you have visited CEG-TEK links thinking that RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT was CEG-TEK, but really they are an ‘evil twin’ competitor.  Since the two entities operate almost the same way, and since I am getting hits from our site’s analytics that RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT is also sending copyright violation notices to Canadian ISP subscribers as well, this article is relevant.]

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