Direct TV launches lawsuit against pirates
19 Canadians involved in case -
U.S. satellite company Direct TV Group Inc. has launched a suit in Ontario Superior Court against 19 Canadians the firm alleges sold equipment to illegally receive television signals.
The suit asks for an injunction to stop the alleged perpetrators from selling any devices, and for financial damages against them and five businesses they operate.
Direct TV beams television signals from satellites to viewers in the United States, but it is not licensed to operate in Canada, and doesn't hold Canadian copyright to any of the programming it distributes.
Still, in the past "black market" devices have been sold in Canada and the United States that can pick up DirectTV signals without paying. Direct TV changed its access cards last year to make it more difficult to steal its signal.
But there has also been a large "grey market," where Canadian viewers pick up the Direct TV signal by subscribing through a U.S. postal address. This lawsuit is aimed at the individuals and businesses who, the company alleges, have been helping Canadian viewers to get the signals on the grey market.
Direct TV said that in addition to filing the lawsuit, it "executed civil seizure orders" at nine locations in southern Ontario, and recovered "a significant volume of computer files and business records."
Most of the defendants in the case live in Waterloo or Kitchener, Ont., although there are others in Beamsville, Collingwood, Shakespeare, St. Catharines and Welland.
The suit alleges that the defendants used a network of companies and websites to give potential Direct TV customers fake U.S. addresses so they could set up accounts.
In addition to asking for an injunction to stop the activity, Direct TV is also asking for damages of -million, "for breaches of the Radiocommunication Act, fraud, conspiracy, conversion, unlawful interference with economic relations and unjust enrichment." It is also asking for -million in punitive damages.
The suit says the company is "entitled to an accounting and disgorgement of all revenues and profits made by the pirate defendants from the wrongful conversion of Direct TV's property."
In a statement, Direct TV executive vice-president Dan Fawcett said "we were able to detect the fraudulent activity, and through an extensive investigation we have identified those individuals, who we believe have engaged in various forms of piracy." Some of the defendants have a "long history of pirate activity," the firm said, "and several of them have been charged criminally in other signal theft cases."
A coalition of Canadian broadcasters and cable and satellite companies, known as the Coalition against Satellite Signal Theft, has been lobbying the federal government to beef up the Radio communication Act and increase penalties levied against those convicted of stealing signals
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