ABS-CBN sues Canadian firm for $5M

ABS-CBN Corp. on Tuesday said it filed a lawsuit against Techspeed Canada, Inc. and several individuals it accused of selling set- top boxes that allowed users to access the media giant’s films and TV shows.

In a statement, ABS- CBN said it served a statement of claim issued in Canadian Federal Court against Techspeed, Joe Baddas, Ferdinand Molina and Todd Ross, seeking damages of over $ 5 million “for copyright infringement , trademark infringement and enabling and inducing copyright inf r ingement of ABS- CBN’s copyrighted works.”

“ABS-CBN alleges that Techspeed Canada, Inc., Joe Baddas, Ferdinand Molina and Todd Ross were taking advantage of ABS-CBN’s premium subscription service through its digital platform, TFC.tv, by registering over 78 e-mails and distributing the usernames and passwords to hundreds of customers. These customers were participating in this illegal activity by paying the Techspeed group and giving access to their credit card information,” ABS-CBN Assistant Vice-President and Head of Global Anti- Piracy Elisha Lawrence was quoted as saying.

Ms. Lawrence said TFC.tv is the only legitimate ABS-CBN Internet subscription.

“If you have any suspicions that they are not affiliated with ABS-CBN, please call the ABSCBN office in the US or Canada to verify. We will continue to protect customers by shutting these operations down,” she said.

David Lipkus, counsel for ABS-CBN in Canada, said the company will continue to take the necessary action to control access to its content.

“ABS- CBN invests tremendous resources into its high- quality, original content, and will continue to ensure that Canadians have access to legitimate ABS- CBN content directly from ABS- CBN,” he said.