This was a rare summary trial for copyright infringement in the Federal Court. The summary trial addressed a specific provision of the Copyright Act (s. 31) which is rarely invoked and has not received much judicial treatment. The Plaintiffs represented by Smart & Biggar were largely successful in this summary trial with the Court finding that the Defendants were not entitled to claim the benefit of that exception at all for the retransmission of TVA Sports (a French-speaking sports TV station) and prior to February 2021 for TVA (a very popular TV station in Québec) to hotels.
