Two Ontario men—Antonio and Marshall Macciacchera—are being sued by some of the biggest names in entertainment, including Bell, Rogers, Disney, Paramount, and Warner Bros., for allegedly operating a large-scale TV piracy service that generated millions in revenue.
According to a report by the Vaughan Citizen, the father and son are accused of illegally streaming TV shows and movies through their platform, SmoothStreams (SSTV), to thousands of subscribers. Court documents suggest the operation brought in an estimated $1.5 million per year, with about 2.5 million visits to SSTV in 2021. The content was hosted on servers based in Panama and Hong Kong.
Despite the lawsuit being nearly three years old, the case has yet to fully proceed in federal court. Both Antonio and Marshall recently agreed to give up their passports as part of ongoing contempt of court proceedings. They had previously refused access to several properties, including homes and a commercial location, resulting in contempt findings and fines of $375,000 for Marshall and $95,000 for Antonio.
Court documents reveal that investigators seized TV receivers, encoders, and servers from the properties, allegedly used to capture and redistribute television content on a large scale.
The plaintiffs claim the Macciaccheras are continuing to withhold key information, including passwords and documentation. Bell and Rogers are asking the court to consider jail time of up to six months for contempt unless the pair comply. The Macciaccheras have offered lesser penalties: Antonio proposed 30 days on weekends or house arrest, while Marshall suggested one week of jail per violation.
Why do people pirate? It’s to get access to live TV and streaming services for a fraction of the price, even if it’s illegal. We’ve seen similar cases of media giants in Canada suing IPTV boxes readily available on sites like Amazon and more. Back in 2022, a Montreal Man was ordered to pay $25 million in damages to Rogers, Bell and Videotron for TV Piracy.
The case is expected to continue with penalty hearings later this month.
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Legal streams has become ridiculous. I have to subscribe to 2 networks to watch all my Habs games because they are split between RDS and TVA. And if I subscribe to the NHL Network, there is a regional blackout preventing me to watch my local team. It's ridicoulous, Rogers and Bell needs to fix this ASAP. Rogers and Bell did this to themselves, It just way more convenient to pay for the illegal streams.
It's difficult to consider piracy immoral in today's greedy climate. As many, I have multiple subscriptions; if what I'm looking for is unavailable on the numerous platforms I subscribe to, I will download illegally without any ethical debate. This should not be considered aberrant behavior. In fact, it should be encouraged.
If streaming is not ownership…
Culture shouldn't exist only for those who can afford it.
Hope they get those streams back up and make money off these disgusting companies again.
Why should bell and rogers be the only ones who can profit off of content that isn’t theirs?
I like their proposals for lesser penalties. How come neither came up with no beer for a week? 😉
If the cause of piracy is to avoid existing rates because they are too high then the cheapest and most efficient way to kill it is to make your rates affordable. Look at the music industry, they solved it. Movies and tv solves it when there was only Netflix available for 5$ a month, they’ve forgotten the lessons the music industry learned
If you want to fight piracy you need to provide a better service than the pirates. Most companies refuse to change though and will instead blame the consumers for their own failings.
i still havetv plus a other thing i am always watching tv and the cable companies are the crooks
Piracy will be a non-issue when streaming platforms will get realistic about their rates.
Not only the rates but the constant moving of tv series between streaming services, at on point I had 9 or so subscriptions to watch one show cause it kept getting moved every season, sometimes halfway through a season. Outside of that if they want people to stop pirating they need to make every tv show on the planet available everywhere no more regional restrictions, 70% of what I watch isn't available in canada so pirating is the only option.
I used to pay for all the big sports until blackouts made it impossible to watch. I'll never pay for sports again. The switch has been flipped.