Over $550,000 Fine for TVA Sports Broadcasting in Hotels

The Quebec companies were ordered to pay more than $550,000 in damages for retransmitting TVA Sports’ signal at hotels without permission.

Judge Sebastien Gramond weighed in on the companies Konek Technologies, Cooperative de câblodistribution Hill Valley and Libéo Inc and the founder of those companies, Jean-François Rousseau, in a ruling issued Monday.

In addition to ordering them to pay $553,000 in legal damages, he issued an injunction preventing them from broadcasting the TVA Sports signal.

According to the ruling, Konek has developed a telecommunications system for hotels which made it possible in particular to offer Wi-Fi, IP telephony and retransmission of television channels in the rooms.

The service, distributed by Hill Valley, found recipients in various hotels who took the opportunity to terminate their cable television subscription.

However, the companies never obtained permission from Quebecor to retransmit TVA’s channel signals, as stated in the ruling.

It should be apparent that Konek and Hill Valley originally obtained the signals they retransmitted by subscribing to Videotron’s services.

When the chase began [le 26 février 2021]Videotron has canceled this service.

To get a signal for TVA Sports channels, Konek and Hill Valley have signed up for online streaming services.

Groupe TVA has never authorized these services to retransmit the signal of TVA Sports channels, and according to the evidence presented to the court, these services may have been illegal,” said detailed judge Sebastien Gramond.