Re: ICRAVETV

[TC Cheever <tc@chaostheory.com>]

Kevin Vahey wrote:
> 
> Interesting battle developing north of the border concerning a website
> icravetv.com. This site is retransmitting ALL over the air signals in the
> Toronto area, and then puts a commercial bug in a small part of the Real
> Video window.
> 
> Needless to say US broadcasters are FURIOUS and are trying to stop the
> retransmission of the Buffalo network stations, but CAN they?

I've been following this closely (since I work for an internet-based
company).

There's an article on Wired News dating from last month that explains
ICraveTV.com's position (and legal justification under *Canadian* law):
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,33093,00.html

And another from last week describes the new US-based litigation against
them:
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,33797,00.html

Essentially, Canadian copyright law allows for the _unaltered_
retransmission of broadcast signals, with no liability for copyright
infringement. There's no need for the retransmitting party to pay any
fees or even ask the original broadcaster's permission-- which is why
the channels available for viewing via ICraveTV.com are only those
available to, say the average person with a television set (not a
cable-ready one, of course) in downtown Toronto.

Several parties are upset with this. The Canadian Association of
Broadcasters has sent cease-and-desist letters; the NFL is (or was)
pushing the position that retransmitting the broadcast signal in a
RealVideo window with an advertising wrapper constitutes an alteration
of the original signal.

Meanwhile, a separate legal action was taken just last week in the US. A
consortium of ten US movie companies and three US broadcasters are suing
in Federal court in Pittsburgh, charging the practice violates US
copyright laws-- which I don't believe anyone is denying; the ICraveTV
party line is that they aren't required to comply with the US laws,
since they're a Canadian company. The justification for filing a lawsuit
in US court is that the domain ICraveTV.com was originally registered to
the CEO of the company at his Pittsburgh, PA mailing address, before he
moved to Canada to actually build up the company.

Should be interesting. Maybe one of the attorneys on list could venture
a guess to this: what authority, if any, would a decision in a US
Federal court carry against a Canadian corporation?