Canadians Furious Over Copyright Violation Notices

Canadians are still getting copyright violation notices after at least one anti-piracy company is still demanding them to pay their settlement fee.

Canadian defaulters face the chance of ending in court and paying a fine of up to $5,000 and more in some cases

Meghan Sali, a Vancouver-based group that is responsible advocating free and open internet states that the letters sent can be confusing. The situation is called “A shakedown against Canadians.”

It is called “a shakedown” because it is claimed that defaulters that receive a notice do not get to pay any sort of fee.
But yet still the notices don not stop coming in.

Canadians argue that the government should go over the laws surrounding piracy notice systems so that Canadians will get to know their faults when they go wrong.”I believe that copyright owners should be paid for their work but at the same time, the notice system is also open to abuse and I think the system is being abused,” Allen Mendelsohn an internet law specialist stated.

In 2015, a new Canadian law referred to as the notice-to-notice system was enacted. It stated that violation notices should be made available to customers that were caught downloading unauthorized things like movies and TV shows by all internet service providers.
Nonetheless. this law does not state that it was made for profit making instead it was formulated to stop piracy. However since this law was made, many anti-piracy companies have been sending notices to customers demanding them to pay a fee.

This rapid increase of notices sent has become a course for concern as Calgary’s Darren Mycroft told reporters that he had received four notices in 2015 with the claims that he had downloaded porn movies which he said was not true but was faced with $450 after he ignored the notices.

Yet still, other Canadians are full of rage as they came to find out after they had paid up the amount when they should not have paid anything at all.

The federal government took it upon itself to respond to the ongoing situation saying “there is no obligation for Canadians to pay these settlements.”

Although it has been made clear that Canadians are not to pay any sort of fee, threats are still being made to customers saying that they will have to face the court in refusal to pay the fees.

Mendelsohn constantly faces questions from customers about the fees status and if the charges are valid.

“I have been contacted by many upstanding professionals who are obviously quite nervous. They fear some sort of action taken against them that will destroy their reputation and personal life.”