Are you wondering if streaming movies is illegal in Canada? With the price of legal movie streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime going up, many Canadians may be tempted to return to the days of old, when streaming movies illegally on the internet was widespread in the absence of legal streaming services. 

But streaming movies online in Canada from websites like Putlocker or 123movies could spell trouble and you may be wondering: Is streaming movies illegal in Canada? Is it illegal to watch 123 movies? Can you download subtitles without getting in trouble? Can you go to jail?

It’s unlikely you’ll have a SWAT team at your door if you’re streaming a copy of a movie online, even if a known piracy site hosts it.

Small-scale copyright infringement by an individual streaming a pirated copy of a movie is indeed illegal, but finding yourself in handcuffs for such a thing isn’t going to happen. 

Canada’s Copyright Act and the “Notice and Notice” Regime

Under Canada’s copyright laws, you could get a notice from your Internet service provider that a copyright holder, such as a record company or a movie studio, has flagged your IP address for allegedly infringing activity.

This is a “notice and notice” regime under Canada’s Copyright Act. It requires companies that sell internet subscriptions to notify subscribers and account holders that they’ve “been linked to alleged infringing activities, such as the illegal downloading of movies.”

The notice and notice regime, though, saw thousands of Canadians sent threatening communications demanding payments and personal information from people who may have had no idea they’d done anything wrong. In December 2018, Canada’s Parliament amended the Act and clarified the rules to end the practice. 

After the amendment, notices sent to internet users accused of copyright infringing activities could no longer offer to settle, demand payment, or request a user’s personal information. 

Streaming movies is prohibited in Canada

In a 2018 Western Journal of Legal Studies article, author Colin Hyslop contrasted Canada’s notice and notice regime with America’s “more heavy-handed” approach that allows copyright holders to force websites to take down infringing content. 

Calling Canada’s system a “more balanced approach,” Hyslop argued that it operates assuming that Canadian internet users would be more cautious about illegal content since their internet services providers are essentially “observing their online behaviour.” 

“This assumption appears to have merit, as peer-to-peer piracy rates of copyrighted material have dropped dramatically following the enactment of this regime,” Hyslop’s article states. 

A 2018 study commissioned by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada found that one in 10 people who used the internet in Canada had received such a notice. 

Infringement Notices in Canada

One in four people surveyed for the study ignored their infringement notices, but the consequences of this are unclear.

Consumers surveyed for the study were also more inclined to legally access e-books and music files, though movies came in third among the most commonly legally accessed online content. However, the study also found that “among internet users, movies and TV shows have the highest level of illegal online consumption.”

Interestingly, the demographics of those who admitted to streaming content illegally were among the young and relatively high-income. 

Copyright Infringement Lawsuits in Canada

One of Canada’s most infamous copyright infringement cases involving illegal file-sharing was commenced by Voltage Pictures LLC, a film production company behind the award-winning film The Hurt Locker. Voltage eventually identified more than 4,000 “John Doe” defendants who had allegedly illegally accessed the film online. 

Not only did it pit the company against Canadian internet users in a so-called “reverse” class action against thousands of people they believed accessed their copyrighted material illegally, but also Canadian telecom companies, including Rogers and TekSavvy. 

In Rogers’s case, the telecom giant offered to disclose information about subscribers suspected of copyright infringement if Voltage paid the company a fee, which the Federal Court of Canada allowed. However, the fee was struck down on appeal. 

Voltage appealed because Rogers wanted $100 per hour plus tax to gather the required information, which the court acknowledged didn’t seem like “much of an obstacle for movie producers to pay.” The company had offered to disclose information on the first John Doe defendant, but they were one of many.

Is it illegal to stream movies in Canada?

The court of appeal agreed and struck down the fee but stopped short of preventing the company from charging a “likely nominal” fee for the costs associated with disclosing information under Canada’s Copyright Act notice regime. 

“Again, if Rogers and other internet service providers consider this level of compensation for their work unfair, they can ask the Minister to pass a regulation setting a maximum fee,” the court found. 

The Voltage case received considerable attention, though other movie production studios have also sued thousands of Canadians in court for alleged piracy. Bodyguard Productions Inc., which produced the hit film The Hitman’s Bodyguard, was another company involved in copyright lawsuits in Canada. 

Widespread illegal sharing of movies

The company claims it lost revenues on the film due to widespread illegal movie sharing online. It hired a Toronto law firm to send hundreds of legal claims to Internet subscribers identified by their Internet Service Providers, including Rogers. 

“There is no such thing as a free lunch,” Ken Clark, a partner at Aird & Berlis LLP, told Global News in February 2019. “If you get caught, you have to pay.”

According to the Global News story, the firm offered to settle the claims for as little as $100 up to $5000. Clark, the lawyer who handled the Hitman’s Bodyguard lawsuits, also warned about set-top television boxes that allow people to access illegal content online. 

“No law allows people to get something for nothing,” he told the broadcaster. 

Set-top Television Boxes to Access Illegal Streaming Content

So-called Android boxes also exploded in popularity recently, causing a legal storm in Canada. Last year, for example, the Court of Queen’s Bench in Edmonton sided with retailers who had been sued by a company that provides subscriptions to Super Channel in Alberta.

Allarco Entertainment 2008 Inc. sued Staples Canada, Best Buy Canada, London Drugs, and thousands of “John Doe” customers and suppliers who bought and sold set-top boxes, which Allarco claimed were pure “piracy devices.” 

The broadcaster claimed employees at retailers also “encouraged customers to use such boxes to access pirated programming and even guided them in the necessary steps.” But Staples and Best Buy claimed Allarco had sent an undercover investigator to pose as a customer while the set-top boxes also had “legitimate uses.” 

Has Canada made movie streaming illegal?

In that case, the judge agreed, finding “no material evidence of encouragement and guidance or at least any causing harm to Allarco and, in any case, no evidence of any continuing such conduct or any material risk of it.”

In addition, the judge found that “the units in question have legitimate uses and that any post-purchase misuse by consumers cannot be blamed on the retailers.”

The Alberta court, in turn, denied Allarco’s request for an injunction that would’ve compelled stores to caution customers about using the boxes to access illegally posted content online. 

The court found that the company had not shown that the retail sale of the boxes caused them to lose subscribers. 

Streaming Movies Illegally in Canada Online Using Kodi and Other Android Boxes

Allarco’s unsuccessful claims against big retailers aside, facilitating and enabling people to access infringing online content can still get you in trouble. Just ask Adam Lackman, a software developer from Montreal who owned a TVaddons website.

The website offered software application tools that allowed users to access copyrighted material on electronic devices such as KODI set-top television boxes. 

With millions of hits monthly, his website eventually put him in the crosshairs of some of Canada’s biggest broadcasters, including Bell Canada, Videotron, TVA Inc., and Rogers Communications Canada. The companies sued Lackman in 2017 in the Federal Court of Canada, claiming his TVaddons website allowed people to access their content illegally.

Lackman initially denied the claims, telling the National Post that he thought he was going to jail after investigators entered his home and searched all his devices for 16 hours.

According to the Post, he claimed his website was more like a search engine, denying that he could control what users did with add-ons available on his site that “scraped” content online and allowed people to access copyrighted material for free. 

Federal Court of Canada for copyright infringement

“I would never have gone against media giants,” Lackman told the Post in 2017. “I’m not suicidal. Why would I go against these people?”

However, in February 2022, Lackman admitted to being a “pirate” and was found liable by the Federal Court of Canada for copyright infringement. The court ordered him to pay the broadcaster plaintiffs a whopping $25 million in lump sum damages.

The court handed down an injunction prohibiting him from “making the Plaintiff’s Programs available to the public by telecommunication in a way that allows members of the public to access them from a place and at a time individually chosen by them.

This includes directly or indirectly participating in the development, operation, maintenance, updating, hosting, distribution, or promotion of Infringing Add-ons for the FreeTelly application, the Indigo tool, or any similar software application or tool.

This includes the websites www.tvaddons.ag, www.offshoregit.com, or any other website providing similar services.” 

Streaming movies is not allowed in Canada?

Canada’s Copyright Act empowers copyright holders to take legal action against people who distribute their content without permission. While most Canadians who stream content online don’t have to worry about going to jail, they could find themselves in legal hot water if a movie studio identifies their IP address as a source for suspected infringement. 

But streaming an illegitimate copy of a movie in Canada won’t likely put you in their crosshairs. It’s a large-scale, industrial, or commercial infringement that could result in significant damages awards like that against former pirate Adam Lackman. 

Whether it’s illegal to stream movies in Canada can generally be answered with a “yes,” but that doesn’t mean a copyright holder can threaten you into settling or demanding your personal information.