Official Canadian Poetry Association Lit-serv

Federal Court upholds decision sentencing U Compute owner to six months in jail for illegal photocopying

The Federal Court of Appeal has upheld one of the toughest sentences ever handed out in Canada in connection with copyright infringement. In December 2005 Justice Francois Lemieux of the Federal Court handed Riaz Lari a six month prison sentence for violating earlier Court orders to stop selling photocopied textbooks at his Montreal copyshop, U Compute, located near ConcordiaUniversity. The Court suspended the sentence on the condition that Lari not have anything to do with the sale of illegally photocopied materials, and that he complete 400 hours of community service. Lari subsequently appealed. On March 28, 2007 the Court of Appeal ruled that it was upholding Lari’s sentence.

“This is a victory for copyright owners,” said Roanie Levy, Director of Legal and External Affairs at Access Copyright. “Once again, the Courts are demonstrating that this sort of print on demand piracy service will not be tolerated.”

The judgment came about as a result of repeated attempts by Access Copyright, The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, to stop Lari from selling illegally photocopied textbooks. U Compute had twice been found in contempt of Court for breaching a “wide injunction,” prior to the 2005 sentence. The Federal Court of Canada’s original court order, which was issued in Fall 2000, prevented the copyshop from making illegal copies of whole textbooks and selling them to students at dramatically reduced prices.

On January 7th, 2004, U Compute was served with a court order following Access Copyright’s compliance efforts, in which investigators seized over 2,200 photocopied university textbooks. This seizure alone represented an estimated $250,000 in lost revenue to booksellers, publishers and authors. In addition, agents seized more than 2,100 individual digital files which fed U Compute’s illegal print business for the last few years.

Lari must now complete 400 hours of community service as required by the Federal Court order or else face jail time. Lari has also been ordered by the Court to pay Access Copyright over $650,000 in damages and legal costs.