The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that Bell Canada is fighting a $400-million lawsuit from several film production companies, which claim the Internet service provider broke the Copyright Act by allegedly failing to forward tens of thousands of infringement notices to its customers. The Globe's Irene Galea writes that the long-running case got new wind last week when a Federal Court of Appeal judge partly reversed a previous decision, allowing Bell to continue to argue "copyright misuse." It is the first time the defence -- arguing that companies are using copyright law for reasons other than protecting their intellectual property -- has been used in Canada. The judge's decision to allow the telco to amend and add detail to its pleadings sets a new precedent that could ultimately protect consumers who have illegally downloaded content, as other ISPs will now be allowed to use the defence, experts say. The legal battle was based on 80,000 reported illegal downloads, using Bell's network and BitTorrent, a popular peer-to-peer file-sharing platform. An ISP is not liable for copyright infringement taking place over its networks as long as it forwards legal notices to the subscribers doing the infringing.