Court File Nos.: T-2090-143
‘T-269-153 T-477-15; T-1234-153 T-1862-155
T-2042-16;
‘F-117-175 T-132-173 T-133-175 T-13.4517
FEDERAL COURT
BETWEEN:
1395804 ONTARIO LTD.., OPERATING AS BLACKLOCK’S REPORTER
Plaintiff
And
CANADA (ATTORNEY GENERAL)
Defendant
(Moving party)
AFFIDAVIT OF NICK FILLMORE |
I, NICK FILLMORE, from the City of Toronto , in the Province of Ontario,
SOLEMNLY AFFIRM that:
1. Lamatthe founder the Group Campaign to Build “One Big Campaign” (OBC).
OBC was created in 2012 with the goal of having a loosely-knit network of public
interest community organizations that would promote and campaign for the protection of
traditional liberal-minded organizations, policies and ideas in Canada,
2. The small group, which had fewer than 10 members, was never incorpotated. The
founders believed such a metwork was crucial because of the way the Harper
78Conservative government was destroying and cutting back on vital public services,
involving the country in illegal US-led wars, and promoting unpopular policies, such as
refusing to fight climate change.
3. The group was founded mainly through the volunteer work of myself, a retired
long-time CBC producer and broadcaster, and a handful of other persons dedicated to
public-interest issues. Later, Mark Taliano, a retired school teacher, joined the project and
co-ordinated activities on the group's Facebook page.
4. The Facebook page was ereated without any cost to the volunteer group. The goal
was to provide the public with educational and informative articles, many of which
received too little attention in mainstream media Articles from other sites and news
organizations were also published.
5. _ Mr. Taliano posted a total of 26 articles from Blacklock's Reporter on the OBC
Facebook site over a period of about a year. Had Mr. Taliano been warmed that picking
up the Blacklock’s items was a violation of their copyright, he would not have picked up
the articles.
6. Upon being informed by Blacklock’s that we were allegedly infringing upon their
copyright, we removed the items. We apologized, and said we would make sure no
violations would occur in the future.
7. Blacktock's Publisher Tom Korski said his company was suing me and Mark
Taliano personally. Mr. Korski said in an email that his company “vigorously” pursued
copyright violations, and they had cases pending in Federal Court against the Department
of Finance, Canada Revenue Agency, Bank of Canada and others.8. We received official notice from Blacklock’s on August 4, 2015, that they were
taking us to Court
9. We were very surprised that Blacklock's took such an aggressive stand against ws.
We do not believe that our re-publishing the articles damaged Blacklock’s in any way.
‘There is no evidence that we cost them any subscribers. If anything, in hindsight, we felt
that publishing the articles was free publicity for Blacklock’s, which is a rather obscure
publication.
10. Moreover, OBC received no financial gain from posting Blacklock’s articles. We
did not receive any payment for our information,
11. Blacklock’s did not produce any proof that we had damaged their business, yet
they made many aggressive accusations, and proceeded with a lawsuit.
12, We made an offer of $5,000 to Blacklock's but it was declined.
13. Before entering into discussions for a possible settlement, we learned that the
same kind of stories Blacklock’s was suing us over were free at two university libraries.
14. During very acrimonious, moderated settlement proceedings in Ottawa, it was
clear that Blackfock's was prepared to go the Superior Court to try to get a decision
against us unless we agreed to pay them a substantial amount of money.
15. We definitely did not want to proceed to a full Court case because we feared that,
eS
even if we won, our expenses might run as high as $40,000 or $50,000.
x ‘Mark Taliano and I agreed on December 16, 2016, to pay
Blacklock's a total of $21.750 within 60 days. We also incurred legal and mediation fees
of about $8,000.
ae17. Having to come up with such a substantial amount of money for Blacklock’s
within such a short period of time was difficult for us — both retirees living on pensions
and modest investment incomes.
18. The experience with Blacklock's took an emotional toll on both Mark and I, Not
knowing what the outcome would be, and the threat of the suit and the possibility of
being dragged into Court, was very stressful
19. The extremely negative experience with Blacklock's resulted in our small group
closing down the OBC Facebook page and closing down the organization. A worthwhile,
progressive project has been lost to the community.
SOLEMNLY AFFIRMED
Before me in the City of
, in the )
Province of Ontario
‘This 38lday of April, 2017 ) ?
) NICK FILLMORE
81