Millennium Funding, Inc. v. Bell Canada, 2023 FC 764
Justice Furlanetto - 2023-05-31
Read full decision. Summary prepared by Alan Macek:
This motion is an appeal by Bell under Rule 51(1) of the Federal Courts Rules of an order of Case Management Judge, in which the CMJ struck portions of Bell’s Amended Statement of Defence and Counterclaim without leave to amend. The Impugned Paragraphs include allegations that the Millennium Producers, together with their counsel Aird & Berlis LLP, and other AB clients have abused the Notice and Notice Regime and misused their copyright, abused process, engaged in champerty and maintenance and unlawful means conspiracy through their use of a Copyright Enforcement Program to enforce the Notice and Notice Regime. For the reasons that follow, it is my view that while the CMJ did err in taking too limited an approach to the misuse of copyright defence, the motion should nonetheless be dismissed as Bell has not otherwise established that the CMJ erred, including in respect of his findings that insufficient material facts were pleaded to support the allegations made. ... Rather than using the Notice and Notice Regime as a legitimate vehicle to enforce copyright, Bell asserts that they use the CEP to send notices to members of the public who do not infringe or who are wrongfully accused of infringement to obtain disproportionate settlements from innocent parties, to intimidate alleged infringers to settle for larger amounts, to inundate ISPs with unreliable and automatically generated notices, and then to claim damages. ... In such circumstances, I agree with the Millennium Producers, there is no basis to suggest that further amendment would cure the defects noted and as such, the decision to deny leave was justified.
Decision relates to:
- T-1062-21 - MILLENNIUM FUNDING, INC. et Al. v. BELL CANADA et Al.
- A-152-23 - which is an appeal from this decision