Is IPTV Legal in Canada? Here’s How It Works

IPTV stands for Internet Protocol Television: live channels and on-demand video sent over an internet connection instead of a cable or satellite signal. In Canada, Bell Fibe TV and Rogers Ignite TV both reach homes this way, and nothing about the method is restricted.

What decides the question is permission. Channels belong to networks, studios and leagues, which license them to distributors. A service streaming channels it hasn’t licensed is infringing, however polished its app looks.

Canadian copyright comes from the federal Copyright Act. In November 2019 the Federal Court issued the country’s first site-blocking order, after Bell, Rogers and Groupe TVA went to court over GoldTV, an unlicensed IPTV service. Eleven internet providers were told to block it.

TekSavvy appealed, and the Federal Court of Appeal upheld the order in 2021. More recent orders have targeted live sports streams. This page is general information, not legal advice.

The position of someone who only watches is less clear than the position of a seller. Law professor Michael Geist argued in 2015 that people who access streams are unlikely to be infringing, partly because the Copyright Act exempts temporary technical copies. That is an expert’s reading rather than a court ruling, so don’t treat it as a guarantee. Court action so far has centred on operators and distributors.