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Internet - BitTorrent. Voltage Pictures, LLC v. Salna
In Voltage Pictures, LLC v. Salna (Fed CA, 2025) the Federal Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal, here from the dismissal "(for the second time) [of] the appellants’ motion to certify this proposed reverse class proceeding".
Here the courts(s) describe BitTorrent as an internet venture:[12] BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol that allows for the decentralized simultaneous distribution of computer files over the internet. To describe how BitTorrent functions, I can do no better than cite the summary of my colleague, Justice Rennie, in Salna v. Voltage Pictures, LLC, 2021 FCA 176 [Voltage FCA Certification Decision #1], leave to appeal to SCC refused, 39895 (26 May 2022).
[13] At paragraphs 11–14 in Voltage FCA Certification Decision #1, Justice Rennie wrote as follows:The users of each BitTorrent software are connected to each other. Once connected, each user downloads segments of the files available in small pieces, or data packets; the file may be analogized to a completed puzzle, and the packets, the pieces of the puzzle. Once downloaded, the data file can be uploaded for the download of other BitTorrent users, known as “peers”. In this way, the peers can download data packets, or pieces of the puzzle, from various sources while simultaneously uploading that content for download by others.
... Ultimately, an entire file can be obtained by downloading all the required packets from various peers. The peers from whom the downloader received the file and/or packets are considered “uploaders”. A particular uploader may provide to the downloader anything from only a small portion of the entire file to the entire file. However, it is rare for a downloader to receive an entire file from a single uploader. Eventually, the entire file, puzzle, or in this case, film, is assembled, piece by piece, bit by bit, for viewing.
In order for files to be added and become downloadable to other peers, at least one user who has a complete copy of the entire file in question must be connected. This user, or users, “seeds” the file for the rest of the peers. Once a peer downloads an entire file, they can also become a seeder of that file for other users.
Because BitTorrent is a file sharing protocol, once files are shared in the network, they are shared by all users. As such, uploading or offering to upload specific files or data packets can be done without a user’s knowledge and can occur whenever a BitTorrent user is connected to the Internet.
(citations to record omitted.) [14] The appellants used forensic software to obtain the IP addresses of Mr. Salna and members of the proposed class. The appellants assert that their forensic software detected proposed class members’ IP addresses as ones where BitTorrent was used to download some or all of the Works, which resulted in the downloaded Works being offered for upload to other BitTorrent users.
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[17] In the instant case, the appellants alleged that Mr. Salna and members of the proposed class violated the appellants’ copyright in the Works by: (1) making a Work available for download by means of the BitTorrent network by offering the file for uploading; (2) advertising by way of the BitTorrent protocol that a Work was available for download by each proposed Class member; and (3) failing to take reasonable, or any, steps to ensure that a person downloading a Work was authorized to do so by law. Only the first and third of these alleged violations are at issue in this appeal. In their certification materials, the appellants referred to the first and third of the alleged violations as "“Unlawful Acts 1 and 3”".
[18] The proposed class in the present case essentially consists of "“those individuals whose internet accounts had been detected by Voltage’s forensic software as offering to upload its films during a prior six-month period”" (Voltage Pictures, LLC v. Salna, 2019 FC 1412 [Voltage FC Certification Decision #1] at para. 11). Although the proposed class appears to have originally encompassed over 55,000 respondents, by the time of the second certification hearing before the Federal Court, numbers in the proposed class had shrunk to approximately 874. Also, by that date, Mr. Salna was the only remaining proposed representative respondent, with the other two named respondents having been removed as proposed representative respondents earlier in the proceedings: Voltage FC Certification Decision #2 at para. 12.
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