Two Ontario men accused of being the scofflaw pirates behind years of large-scale digital streaming of copyrighted movies and TV have been sentenced to five years in prison — not for piracy, but for contempt of court — unless they reveal passwords and accounts.
Some of the biggest entertainment media companies on the continent — Bell, Rogers, Disney, Paramount Pictures, Universal, Columbia Pictures and Warner Bros. — spent years chasing the digital pirates behind a bootleg service known as Smoothstreams, which was available globally from five user-friendly online platforms offering a vast collection of movies, TV and live sports since at least 2018.
Lawyers, private investigators, and technology specialists for the corporate giants began their hunt seven years ago, launching what is described as a “sophisticated, extensive, and resource and time-intensive investigation.”
They traced internet streams and servers, websites, payment processors and corporate records which, in the summer of 2022, led them to the homes of a Canadian father and son.
Ever since, Antonio Macciacchera, 73, of Woodbridge, Ont., and his son, Marshall Macciacchera, of Barrie, Ont., have been in a legal grapple, defying the might of global media heavyweights.
While it delayed the copyright infringement case against them for three years, their defiance has brought them expensive losses while doing nothing to disprove that investigators found their pirates.
The media companies estimated there were 2.5 million visits to Smoothstreams services in 2021 giving an estimated revenue of more than $1.5 million a year.
By most accounts, Smoothstreams did an adept job at content distribution. Subscribers paid monthly for online access to all sorts of TV channels and streaming content — live sports events were particularly popular — with customer payments allegedly processed by two Hong Kong-based companies and another in Panama.
Prices were cheap since the content wasn’t licensed or authorized. The service fed through various websites, including MyStreams, StarStreams and Live247, with its slogan: “Where all your streams come true!”
Customers loved it. One user described them online as the “gift that keeps giving.”
But after corporate officials, armed with court orders, arrived at the homes and a business of the Macciaccheras and unplugged at least 65 television receivers connected to 24 servers, viewers quickly complained of the abrupt end.
“Saddest day 10 years of perfection gone — please come back soonest,” one customer posted to a Smoothstreams social media account. “Damn the end of an era?” asked another.
While users seem to have moved on, Antonio and Marshall Macciacchera have steadfastly refused to cooperate with court orders and legal demands through years of litigation, leading to them being stripped of their passports, ordered to pay the huge legal fees for the corporate lawyers going after them, and now sentenced to prison.
All without the copyright complaint against them being heard in court.
The media giants started their legal action against the Macciaccheras in June 2022 by asking a judge for secret orders against the pair. A judge granted injunctions to shut Smoothstreams down and issued Anton Piller orders, which are special authorizations that allow for the search, seizure, and preservation of evidence without the target of the orders knowing in advance.
Early in the morning on July 14, 2022, private investigators and lawyers arrived at the Ontario homes of the two men.
At the Woodbridge residence of the elder Macciacchera, Antonio answered the door of his large suburban home in his pyjamas. He refused to let anyone in and wouldn’t read the court order.
When a lawyer tried to explain it, he said he didn’t
“want to hear any more about law stuff”
but wanted to speak with his lawyer, according to a video of the interaction documented in court. He made the officials wait outside and the standoff lasted five hours before they gave up. Court heard he also went by the name Tony Roma.
At the younger Macciacchera’s home in Barrie, Marshall, a self-employed IT consultant, let the entourage in, but his cooperation was intermittent.
In the living room of his apartment in an eight-story building, officials found a rack of computer servers that were the source of four Smoothstreams channels, court heard. In a commercial property a five-minute drive away, they found what were described as the main servers — nine cabinets with at least sixty-five television receivers connected to twenty-three servers.
The servers were capturing TV content and retransmitting it to customers, court was told. While a tech worker unplugged the servers, a private investigator offsite watched Smoothstreams channels go black one by one.
Marshall Macciacchera refused, however, to answer key questions about the source of fifty unauthorized streams that remained online after the Barrie servers were disconnected, as well as questions about computer passwords and hosting, and refused to provide some financial details.
“Although Marshall consented to having the computer copied, he continued to refuse to disclose the password for his computer which would be needed to review the computer’s contents,” court heard.
During the raid, officials for the media companies told court, an unknown person going by the name Sam was remotely interacting with the infrastructure. Marshall refused to identify who it was.
It took officials much of the day, into the night and much of the next day to disconnect and inventory the servers.
In one of the earliest court decisions in the case, a federal judge said the companies had “an extremely strong prima facie case of copyright infringement” and that “content piracy is not a victimless crime.”
If the companies thought their case would then wrap up quickly, they were mistaken. The Macciaccheras fought them at every turn, but have been hit hard for their obstinance.
Within weeks of the raids, the media companies asked the court to charge the two men with contempt of court for not cooperating with the court orders.
Antonio Macciacchera said the bank account information the companies wanted were joint accounts with his wife, and privacy — and fear of marital repercussions — prevented him from doing what the court ordered. He was found guilty of civil contempt in 2023.
“Those who decide when and under what circumstances they will comply with a court order essentially take the law into their own hands. That cannot be countenanced in a society governed by the rule of law,” a Federal Court judge said in that decision.
At the 2024 contempt hearing for Marshall Macciacchera, lawyers for the company said that he “lied, concealed and attempted to conceal evidence” in response to the court orders. Marshall argued privacy, overreach, and decency interfered with the orders.
He too was found guilty of civil contempt, alongside two corporations he controls.
Antonio was ordered to pay $94,906 to the media corporations towards their legal costs in the contempt prosecution. Marshall was ordered to pay $375,312 in legal costs to the companies.
Neither bill has yet been paid, a judge said recently.
In February, the media companies asked the court to seize the two men’s passports before their contempt sentencing hearing. They feared the pair might flee the country.
Court heard that for the past 15 years Marshall has spent significant time in Thailand, where he has both a home and a fiancée. He refused to say where he lived, but said it was an apartment owned by someone from the United Arab Emirates and that he didn’t pay any rent for it.
Antonio, court was told, also has close ties aboard. Although he is a Canadian citizen, he was born in Italy, about halfway between Rome and Naples, and often returns to visit family.
Both men said they wouldn’t flee, but the court agreed to the danger and ordered them to turn their passports over at the start of their sentencing hearing for contempt this June in Toronto.
At that sentencing, even the Macciaccheras said they deserved jail time, although they imagined far less than the judge. They were representing themselves by this stage, saying they had no more money for lawyers.
Marshall told court he should only be incarcerated for one week for each of three “clear failures” to comply with court orders. Antonio said he should only be sentenced to 30 days of house arrest. Both men said those sentences should then clear the slate, and they should not face any other consequences.
Paul Crampton, Chief Justice of the Federal Court, who presided over their sentencing, had apparently had enough.
“It appears that some copyright pirates make calculated decisions to breach court orders, after assessing the pros and cons associated with doing so. Some of those pirates even brazenly continue their contemptuous actions after being found in contempt,” Crampton wrote in the opening of his latest decision against the Macciaccheras this week.
“In the face of such defiance of its orders, it behooves the Court to impose penalties designed to maximize the potential for instilling respect for its orders and the rule of law.”
Crampton chastised the pair for their “brazen, defiant and open contempt” for the court.
He ordered Marshall Macciacchera jailed for an initial period of six months for his failure to comply with court orders. After that, his imprisonment was to continue for five years, less a day, or until he complies, whichever comes first.
That’s the maximum prison term allowed by law for contempt.
Antonio Macciacchera was sentenced to four months, and then he also is to roll into a five-year, less a day, sentence, or until he complies with the court orders, in his case for banking information.
“By continuing their contempt, Marshall and Antonio have displayed blatant defiance of the Court’s Orders and have prevented the Plaintiffs from advancing their underlying action for copyright infringement
,” Crampton wrote.
The men were given 14 days to get their affairs in order before incarceration.
The Macciaccheras could not be reached for comment. Their recent lawyer was away and did not return a request for comment.
Guillaume Lavoie Ste‑Marie, a Montreal-based lawyer for the media companies, said, on behalf of his clients, that illegal internet content providers like Smoothstreams
are “a critical threat to the creative industry.
“These illegal services impact creators and rights holders across the industry, resulting in thousands of lost jobs, and causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.
“The Federal Court’s recent decision sends a clear signal that it’s aware of the harm caused by illegal platforms and that appropriate penalties will be issued to ensure its orders are respected.”
• Email: ahumphreys@postmedia.com | X: AD_Humphreys
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