Download Torrent Is It Illegal In Canada?

Posted by Israel G.
1
Jul 5, 2017
221 Views


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Canada’s latest anti-piracy legislation has some downloading fans questioning 'is torrenting illegal in Canada?' or whether it’s time to swear off their favourite torrent sites — or whether the warning system creates a legal watchdog who can bark but not bite

The Copyright Modernization Act, which took effect Jan.1, requires Internet service providers to send notifications to downloaders whose IP addresses have been identified by copyright holders for perceived violations. The legislation limits the amount a non-commercial downloader can be sued for to $5,000 per case, while damages for commercial infringements can be charged up to $20,000. Fortunately there are still many non-logging VPN providers located outside of Canada that can protect Canadian Internet users' online activity from being monitored and recorded by their ISP. Get more information about the question 'is torrenting illegal in Canada?' by clicking it.

The copyright modernization act (which went into effect January 2, 2015) is a new law that greatly reduces the freedom and rights of Canadians regarding the downloading and sharing music, movies, and other files.

It also has a dramatic impact on personal privacy as all Internet Providers and VPN services based in Canada will now be required to be able to identify individual users and forward notices of alleged CMA violations. In order to comply with this requirement, all Canadian VPN's and Internet Providers must now keep logs of subscriber connection activity for a minimum of 6 months.

It also creates a less desirable climate for BitTorrent users who's IP addresses and possibly online activity will now be recorded by their ISP. Furthermore, internet subscribers may now be subject to extortion letters demanding settlements from (often innocent) internet subscribers identified only by their IP address.

As a result, Canadians have been subscribing en masse to popular VPN services in order to protect their online privacy. A Virtual Private Network (commonly known as a VPN) offers 2 distinct privacy advantages for subscribers:

1. All data transferred between your computer and VPN server is encrypted and unreadable by your ISP
2. The IP address that public sees (websites, torrent peers, etc) is your VPN's IP address, not your own.

Since users targeted under the new CMA legislation are almost always identified by only an IP address, and you subscribe to a non-logging VPN, it is virtually impossible to track online activity from a VPN assigned IP address back to the original user.

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