Does anybody here know if this has ever been done, or is legal? I'm in BC, Canada.
I am almost positive it'll run against SOME stupid copyright law even if you do an ethnically correct thing similar to having a human insert a disk in to a real video playback device and streaming the output to a merely a single very long distance connected display device.
While, the advice to get a lawyer is a good one, I think it's actually pretty clear that it is not legal. It falls pretty clearly under "(f) in the case of any literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, to communicate the work to the public by telecommunication". You would have to get a license -- and that's the difficult-to-the-point-of-impossible bit.
The way it works is that the act outlines all of the circumstances in which copying could be infringing. It then defines infringement in section 2. In section 2 it says that it is not infringement if you have an agreement with the copyright holder (i.e. a license).
You may be thinking that "the public" infers a large group of people. This is not correct. The copyright act doesn't distinguish between numbers of people except in very specific circumstances (private copying with respect to audio recordings of music is an example). There used to be a section dealing with "making available", but it seems to have been removed (I haven't lived in Canada for a decade, so I haven't kept up with the copyright act).
Generally speaking, copyright infringement is a civil matter, but commercial copyright infringement is a criminal matter so it is doubly important to get a good legal opinion before venturing into that territory.
But, like I said, the act is quite clear IMHO. If you disagree, then feel free to get a legal opinion (which mine is not). I would literally be shocked if any lawyer told you that it was legal, though.
Notable is 29.22 Reproduction for private purposes is allowed if
29.22 (1) (a) the individual legally obtained the copy of the work or other subject-matter from which the reproduction is made, other than by borrowing it or renting it, and owns or is authorized to use the medium or device on which it is reproduced;
So it seems that both the DVD and player must be legally owned by the person watching the movie. That means they must have the right to come in and walk away with the DVD and player at any time, just as if they had them in a data center. Seems reasonable. Just buy them back when they're done.
Note that Zediva didn't do this. Their DVDs and DVD players weren't actually owned by the customers, just rented, nor were customers allowed into the data center to repossess them. The US also didn't have the same private reproduction provision as in the Canadian Copyright Act does.
If it was relevant to viewing then it would imply that two people watching a rental aren't covered...
I understand that you want to be upset at the copyright act. I actually don't like it very much either. But you do yourself and others a disservice by maintaining an intentionally ignorant stance. If you want to help, learn about it and do something useful. Sniping at people who are trying to help you is completely unhelpful.
And even if the Canadian version is easy to understand, it doesn't help the US version being excessively twisted in my eyes to make very reasonable things illegal. I'm frankly amazed that 'cloud DVR' wasn't shut down immediately.
Netflix bought Zip.ca but then they shut down mail orders. We don't even have Redbox anymore. It's sad that there are a lot of great movies you can't legally stream online in Canada - can't even torrent them - but we have them on DVD in high quality.