An Ontario, Canada, court 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 sentence would be reduced if the individuals were to reveal their passwords and accounts.
Antonio Macciacchera of Woodbridge, Ontario, and his son, Marshall Macciacchera of Barrie, Ontario, were linked to the operation of a large-scale bootleg streaming service known as Smoothstreams, first detected in 2018 for illegally distributing copyrighted movies and television programs.
The National Post reported that their homes were appoached by private investigators and lawyers in July 2022. The father made them wait for five hours before they gave up and left. The son let them in but cooperation was limited.
Operation revealed
At the son’s apartment, there was rack of servers with four Smoothstreams, and at a nearby hosting location nine more cabinets containing 23 servers and 65 TV receivers were discovered.
Content came from major studios including Disney, Paramount, Universal, Warner Bros., Columbia, and Canadian broadcasters including Bell and Rogers. According to National Post reporting, Smoothstreams sites had 2.5 million visits, with revenue of more than $1.5 million per year by selling streaming subscriptions. Payments were processed by offshore companies.
Sentencing
The father, Antonio Macciacchera, was sentenced to four months, which would escalate to five years if he complied with court orders for passwords and accounts. Son Marshall would receive six months, also escalating to five years if not forthcoming.
The father was ordered to pay about $95,000, and the son ordered to pay more than $275,000, to cover legal costs by the media companies; neither of which had been paid by the date of the National Post’s reporting.
They also were ordered to surrender their passports.
However, while the courts recognized early in this case that copyright infringement took place, the sentence was not for copyright infringement.
Shanti Shah, legal counsel for the Asian Television Network, a Canadian video service, said “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 not for copyright infringement.
ATN has also appealed to the Canadian Law Enforcement System to treat digital theft “on par with the theft of tangible property” and “deal with piracy as an organised crime (which sustains) a cash underground economy besides losing billions of tax dollars.”
Why it matters
ATN’s Shanti Shah remarked on the irony of the situation: “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,” and went on to compare the situation with that of Al Capone, who was sentenced for tax evasion and not for violent crimes.
Further reading
Canadian father and son named as major ‘copyright pirates’ jailed 5 years unless they give up their secrets. Article. August 21, 2025. by Adrian Humphreys. The National Post (Canada)
Asian Television Network applauds landmark ruling in Canadian digital piracy case. Press release. August 28, 2025. Asian Television Network Ltd, via Cision PR service
