Advertisement

Class-action suit against obituary website gets certification, will move ahead

Class-action suit against obituary website gets certification, will move ahead

A class-action lawsuit filed against the website Afterlife has been certified by the Federal Court of Canada.

Afterlife has made waves over the last year by aggregating obituaries from other websites and profiting on them by selling virtual candles and flowers to mourners on its own website.

St. John's lawyer Erin Best is handling the suit.

"They were posting obituaries, and photos along with those obituaries, that they had copied directly from a funeral home website and sites where the writers had allowed the obituaries to go up," Best told CBC News.

For family and friends of the deceased, it was a shock to see Afterlife had copied and pasted their loved one's obituary to their website. Several people across the country spoke out, taking their stories to the media.

Best says this is an infringement on copyright.

"So we filed the class action, and the next stage then was to get the class action certified. You go before the court and ask the court to look at the way you defined the class," Best said.

Afterlife hasn't had much to say since the suit was filed, according to Best.

"I don't think they had a great defence, so they've just stepped back and they're just going to let the action proceed," Best said.

"I think we have a good case. Clearly under our copyright act, an obituary is a literary work, and attracts copyright protection. Certainly a photograph is an artistic work that attracts copyright protection, and they were copying both of those things, both of those works, without permission from the copyright owner."

Similar operation

Afterlife has since shut down its website, but a similar service has popped up. Anyone trying to access Afterlife will be redirected to Everhere.

"They were announcing people's recent deaths, but they were not including a photo and they were using a generic death announcement," Best said.

"But we have sued that corporate entity, so if it's owned by the same corporate entity then there may be an issue. But either way, they've altered what they're doing as a result of our lawsuit."

There will now be an opting-out period, where anyone involved in the suit can exit. After that, Best said they should see results quickly, potentially by Christmas.

"I think that the class will be somewhere between one million and two million people. It's huge," Best said of the amount of people potentially involved in the suit.

"I don't think the company had a lot of money to begin with, and so I don't think we're going to be able to collect a large sum of money. In which case it makes zero sense to try and split a very small amount of money between one to two million people."

Best says they've asked the court to allow for them to donate the money to a relevant charity.

Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador