Asian Television Network International Limited (ATN), Canada’s largest South Asian broadcaster and a long-standing advocate for protecting the rights of creators, has applauded the recent Ontario court ruling that sentenced two individuals to five years in prison for contempt of court after refusing to comply with orders in a long-running digital piracy case.

The case, as reported by The National Post, involved Antonio Macciacchera of Woodbridge and his son, Marshall Macciacchera of Barrie, who were linked to the operation of a large-scale bootleg streaming service known as Smoothstreams. The illegal platform distributed copyrighted movies and television programs from major studios including Disney, Paramount, Universal, Warner Bros, Columbia, and Canadian broadcasters such as Bell and Rogers.

The Macciaccheras’ five-year sentence marks one of the most significant Canadian judicial responses to illegal streaming operations. The decision comes after years of investigations by broadcasters, global studios, and legal teams determined to protect their intellectual property rights.

“This ruling sends a strong and much-needed message: piracy has consequences,” said Dr. Shan Chandrasekar, President & CEO of ATN. “For too long, IPTV and digital piracy has undermined broadcasters, content creators, and the entire Canadian media ecosystem. ATN has invested heavily in premium programming to serve Canada’s multicultural communities, and we welcome this precedent as a step toward safeguarding the creative industry. Piracy hurts everyone – from large studios to independent creators, Specialty Channels in English, French and Third languages, Broadcast Distribution Undertakings such as Cable and Satellite Services including Rogers, Bell, Telus and Quebecor, Legitimate Streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus and Crave and licensed broadcasters like ATN. We remain committed to supporting Canada’s diverse communities with high-quality, legitimate content and to standing with our industry partners in the fight against IPTV & digital piracy,” added Dr. Chandrasekar.

“It is important to note that the sentence in this case is incidental in that it is for contempt of court for defiance of Court orders and it is for four and a half months period to permit sober reflection and opportunity to purge the contempt and the option to choose gaining of freedom or staying behind bars for a total five years,” observed Shanti Shah, ATN’s legal counsel. He went on to add that “unfortunately, even petty crimes such as shoplifting get the full force of the law, including detection, investigation, prosecution yet in the case of wholesale digital larceny the State stands by and leaves the victim to his own devices. The heavy lifting requires deep pockets and firm commitment. The Courts have valiantly come up with remedies to the extent that they can but the Parliament has not seen fit to find a way to have digital theft included as an offence under the criminal code of Canada. One is reminded of the Al Capone real life story in whose case no charges related to violent crimes would end up in convictions and when he was convicted that was for tax evasion and a penalty of a long term of prison.”

ATN is urging the Canadian Law Enforcement System to adjust to digital theft on par with the theft of tangible property and deal with piracy that is supporting organised crime and sustaining a cash underground economy besides losing billions of tax Dollars.

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Categories: Articles, Broadcast, Business, Content, IPTV, OTT, Pay TV, Piracy, Policy, Regulation, Rights

Tags: Asian Television Network, IPTV, piracy