Dear Mr. Doncaster: Thank you for your response, below. I will discuss your suggestions with my client. I should note that the SOCAN case (our firm acted for SOCAN in the litigation) was simply cited to show that the common carrier exception may not apply where the ISP can be shown to "authorize" the communication. The Court stated that such authorization may be inferred from a refusal to take down infringing works after reasonable notice is given. Yours very truly, Christopher C. Van Barr Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP Suite 2600 160 Elgin Street Ottawa, Canada K1P 1C3 Tel (613) 786-8675 Fax (613) 563-9869 christopher.vanbarr@gowlings.com -----Original Message----- From: Ralph Doncaster Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2002 11:05 PM To: christopher.vanbarr@gowlings.com Subject: BSA/CAAST Mr. Van Barr, I am in receipt of your letter dated June 3. Since the original BSA email lacked authenticity, I deleted it. If you can provide the IP address suspected of sharing the copyrighted file, as well as the exact time (to the nearest minute), we can perform a records search to try to find the subscriber that was assigned the IP at that time. Note that we consider your citation of SOCAN V. CAIP irrelevant, and in fact threatening. In providing internet access to our subsribers we do not monitor the content of material transmitted over our subscriber links and therefore act as a common carrier. Should your communications continue in this tone, we may re-think our willingness to cooperate. We can provide records search service for a fee of $350. This service would include an email notification to the subscriber (with the text of the message to be provided by yoruself or your client), and a signed statement by an officer of IStop.com indicating that our user was so notified. We will not divulge any private subscriber information without a proper court order. This service as well would be available for a fee of C$350. Ralph Doncaster principal, IStop.com div. of Doncaster Consulting Inc. IMPORTANT NOTICE: This message is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed, and may contain information that is privileged, confidential and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify Gowlings immediately by email at postmaster@gowlings.com. Thank you.