Top court will not hear Bell ExpressVu appeal

The Supreme Court of

OT TAWA Canada has refused to hear a Bell ExpressVu appeal against a judgment that ordered the company to pay millions to Québecor subsidiaries Vidéotron and TVA over video piracy.

The Quebec Court of Appeal ruled in March that Bell must pay $137 million, including interest, for failing to prevent the piracy of its satellite signal between 1999 and 2005.

The unanimous appeal court determined that the satellite TV division of BCE’s Bell did not do enough to prevent stolen access to ExpressVu’s signal and cost broadcasting partners such as Vidéotron, Cogeco and Star Choice substantial revenues.

By gaining free access to Bell, viewers could watch Vidéotron programming at no cost, reducing the number of paid Vidéotron subscribers and royalties paid to specialty channels of the French-language TVA network that had been distributed

By gaining free access to Bell, viewers could watch Videotron programming at no cost, reducing the number of paid Vidéotron subscribers

by Bell since 1998.

The unanimous ruling by Quebec’s highest court upheld a lower court decision that said the satellite TV division of BCE’s Bell neglected to implement appropriate security to prevent piracy of its ExpressVu service.

However, the province’s top court ordered Bell to pay a bigger penalty, $82.3 million to Vidéotron and $404,000 to TVA Group, plus interest and experts’ fees.

The appeal judges said, based on its 73-per-cent market share in Quebec and the three per cent of “acceptable” pirating, Vidéotron lost more customers to piracy than Quebec Superior Court Justice Joel Silcoff thought when he came up with his $1-million award.

Québecor chief executive Pierre Dion said at the time the decision shed light on how Vidéotron and TVA were deprived of substantial revenue because consumers could get TV service through pirated satellite signals rather than paying for cable.