Allarco Entertainment Submits Lawsuit Against Large Retail Stores in Canada
Last updated September 27, 2021
- Allarco accuses four large retail chains of promoting piracy through TV boxes.
- The devices are not pre-configured, but the staff is providing customers with the required info.
- Allarco holds over 100 hours of proof in the form of audio and video recordings from inside the stores.
Allarco Entertainment Inc. has submitted a lawsuit targeting Staples Canada Inc., Best Buy Canada Ltd., Canada Computers Inc., London Drugs Ltd., and up to 50000 of their customers. The main accusations include the breaching of the copyright Act, the selling of pirate devices, and the provision of advice on how to pirate. The plaintiff is now asking for a permanent injunction that will prevent the defendants from selling these devices again in the future. The same applies to the encouragement of customers to use these devices as tools for piracy, and educate them on how to do it. Of course, Allarco is also asking the Federal Court of Canada to consider deciding upon statutory damages.
According to the official complaint, employees working on the aforementioned stores were promoting Android-powered TV box devices to the customers, explaining how they could use them for the consumption of illegal content streams. While the particular devices weren’t pre-configured for piracy as that would be a blatant act of unlawfulness that couldn’t be justified by the store chains, the devices were still promoted and sold as potentially pirating tools. Allarco Entertainment has proof of their claims on the promotion, encouragement, and instruction on how prospective buyers can use the TV boxes as pirating devices, otherwise, they wouldn’t submit such a bold lawsuit.
Source: torrentfreak.com
The company holds over 100 hours of secret video and audio recordings from Allarco agents who pretended to be customers and visited the chain stores asking for info about the TV boxes. This took place over an investigation period of 19 months. In these recordings, the store staff is advising Allarco’s secret agents to install the Kodi app on the boxes, and then use Google to find the suitable Kodi add-ons that enable the piracy of content. Kodi isn’t an illegal software by itself, but it can be configured to help users access repositories of illegal content.
Allarco even claims that they showed the videos to the four retailers a couple of months ago, but the behavior of their staff hasn’t changed. This leaves them with no other option than to submit a lawsuit and force a change of culture in the selling practices of their staff. One key incident example in the lawsuit details how the staff of a specific shop had even set up a TV box for piracy, openly demonstrating its capabilities to the store's customers. This is a direct violation of the Copyright Act, so the judge will have to consider this law in conjunction with the Criminal Code of Canada (sections 408 and 420), as well as the Radiocommunication Act.
Do you believe that the retailers will be asked to pay a fine for what they did, or is the judge going to allow them to continue the selling of TV boxes? Let us know what you think in the comments down below, or join the discussion on our socials, on Facebook and Twitter.
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