Thousands of Canadians may have downloaded a movie like King Kong off the Internet without paying for it, or shared a song like Run, by Gnarls Barkley.
But under new copyright legislation being tabled in Ottawa, that kind of downloading is considered to be freeloading.
"It's legal to copy music if you acquire it legally but it's not legal to share music at all," said Federal Industry Minister Jim Prentice.
The new legal provisions, known as Bill C-61 would allow recording television shows for later viewing
Under the legislation, it would be legal to make one-time copies of legally purchased movies & music for portable devices like i-pods and cellphones.
But posting copyrighted hits like King Kong to networking sites like Facebook or Youtube, could qualify as infringements.
The main aim of the Federal legislation appears to be discouraging illegal downloading and sharing.
Ottawa will try to achieve that goal with a fine of $500 for downloading music or movies illegally
The penalties are much more severe for uploading music or movies to a website or hacking a digital lock. That penalty would be $20,000.
Sill, University of British Columbia law professor Mira Sundara Rajan says she wonders how the Federal government will enforce the provisions in the legislation.
"The government has not thought this through," Sundara Rajan
She said the penalties of Canada's new copyright act wouldn't be nearly as nasty as the equivalent laws in the United States .
Since 2003, 26,000 American downloaders have been charged 'randomly' -- in what has been described as a kind of legal Russian-roulette. Most people settled out of court for a few thousand dollars paid to record companies.
But some people fought it, lost and are now facing fines in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
With a report by CTV British Columbia's Peter Grainger
