Over the past several years, hundreds of thousands of piracy warnings have been sent out to Canadian pirates under the 'notice-and-notice' scheme. While these notices can no longer include settlement demands, following a recent update in legislation, accused pirates can still get in trouble. Several movie companies have filed for Norwich orders, asking the court to subpoena ISPs to hand over customer information, so they can contact these people directly.

These cases lead to the so-called 'copyright trolling' practices we're seeing elsewhere in the world. They are filed by rightsholders of films such as The Hitman's Bodyguard, Criminal, London Has Fallen, and Dallas Buyers Club. And with hundreds of IP-addresses being targeted per case, their scope is quite broad.

Most ISPs don't challenge these subpoena requests but in a recent case Internet provider Teksavvy decided to take a stand. When ME2 Productions, the company behind the film Mechanic: Resurrection, requested the personal details of several customers, the ISP decided to appeal. Among other things, TekSavvy argued that the evidence provided by the copyright holder is not sufficient enough to warrant handing over customer information.

Last week the Federal Court of Canada sided with the Internet provider. Judge William Pentney concluded that the evidence put forward by the movie company was not sufficient. This is problematic, as it could result in the wrong persons being targeted, he concluded.

"This case illustrates why it is so important for the Court to have the best available evidence," Judge Pentney writes.

For example, unlike the movie company claimed, it appeared that several of the targeted subscribers never received an initial notice of copyright infringement, which is a requirement in these cases.

"One can easily imagine the reaction of such individuals when this is the first notice they would have received of the matter. This is precisely what Parliament was seeking to avoid when it adopted the notice and notice regime in the Act," the order reads.

Perhaps even worse, one of the IP-addresses that was listed didn't even belong to TekSavvy. These and other issues make it clear that subpoenas should only be issued when there's sufficient evidence.

The court also highlighted the privacy aspect of this case. Specifically, the order states that ISPs have a legal obligation to protect the privacy of their customers. While most ISPs chose not to appeal the order, TekSavvy certainly has an interest in doing so.

"TekSavvy is in possession of the personal information of its customers. It has a legal obligation to protect such information and an obvious commercial interest in doing so," Judge Pentney noted.

In the present case, the court found that several mistakes were made. If TekSavvy didn't stand up for its customers, the privacy of these people would have been at stake.