Is IPTV Legal in Canada? What the Law and Courts Say

Short answer: IPTV is a way of delivering TV over the internet, and the technology is not illegal. Whether a particular IPTV service is lawful depends on whether it has the rights to the channels and titles it sells. This is general information, not legal advice, and IPTV Review makes no finding about the legality or licensing of any provider we review.

IPTV the technology versus an IPTV service

Telecom companies, broadcasters and streaming platforms all use IPTV technology under licences. A small subscription provider that sells thousands of channels is a different question: the technology is the same, but the rights are what matter. A smooth app or a professional website tells you nothing about whether rights are in place.

What the Copyright Act says

Section 27 of the Copyright Act sets out infringement. Subsection 27(1) says it is an infringement to do something only the copyright owner may do without the owner’s consent. Subsection 27(2) covers “secondary” infringement, which includes selling or distributing copies of a work, or possessing them for that purpose, when the person knows or should have known they infringe copyright. Read the text of section 27 yourself; the summary here is ours and is not a legal interpretation.

What Canadian courts have done

• 2019: The Federal Court ordered Canadian internet providers to block access to an unauthorized IPTV service, in what news reports called the first order of its kind in Canada (CityNews).
• 2021: The Federal Court of Appeal upheld the Federal Court’s power to make such blocking orders, in TekSavvy Solutions Inc. v. Bell Media Inc., 2021 FCA 100 (MobileSyrup).

We read these through news coverage, not the full judgments, so check the decisions themselves for the exact holdings. We did not research developments after 2021 for this guide.

What this does not settle

The sources above deal with sellers, distributors and internet providers. They do not tell you how the law treats an individual viewer in every situation, and we are not in a position to say. If that matters to you, ask a lawyer who practises copyright or media law in your province.

Questions worth asking any provider

None of these prove a service is lawful, but a provider that cannot answer them is telling you something.

1. Who is the operating company, and where is it registered? Is that stated on the website?
2. Does the provider say it holds rights or licences for the channels and titles it sells? Can it show which?
3. Are the terms of service, refund policy and privacy policy published at a stable address?
4. Is the price so low, or the channel count so large, that it needs explaining?
5. If you pay, is there a receipt, an invoice and a way to cancel?

How we treat this on provider reviews

On every review, licensing is marked not verified unless a provider has shown evidence we could check. For example, none of IPTV4K.CA, IPTVT.CA or IPTVGLOBAL.CA has published licensing information that we have verified. See the methodology for how we label evidence, and the legal notice for our disclaimer.

Related

• Reviews of Canadian IPTV providers
• Free trials, compared
• IPTV prices in Canada