Fined more than $550,000 for broadcasting TVA sports in hotels

Quebec companies have been ordered to pay more than $550,000 in damages for rebroadcasting the signal of TVA sports channels in hotels without permission.

Judge Sébastien Gramond’s ruling on Monday pinned the companies Conec Technologies, Cooperative de Cabledistribution Hill Valley, Libio Inc and the founder of these companies, Jean-Francois Rousseau.

In addition to ordering them to pay $553,000 in statutory damages, TVA issued an injunction prohibiting them from broadcasting the sports signal.

According to the judgment, KONEK developed a telecommunications system for hotels, which notably made it possible to provide Wi-Fi, IP telephony and retransmission of television channels in rooms.

The service, distributed by Hill Valley, found takers in various hotels that took the opportunity to terminate their cable television subscriptions.

However, the ruling states that the companies never received permission from Quebecor to rebroadcast the TVA channels’ signals.

“It should be clear that Konek and Hill Valley actually received the rebroadcast signals by subscribing to Videotron’s services.

When the hunt begins [le 26 février 2021]Videotron has canceled this service.

To get a signal for TVA sports channels, Konek and Hill Valley subscribe to Internet streaming services.

Group TVA never authorized these services to retransmit the signal of TVA sports channels, and according to the evidence presented to the court, these services are probably illegal,” explained Judge Sebastian Gramond.