It's very hard to say. Tl;dr: Immigration law is very complex, timelines for parallel actions are often not synchronized in any helpful way, and outcomes are very difficult to predict. I'm not a lawyer and a lot of this depends on Canadian law which I definitely don't know anything about.

MuseGroup can file a civil lawsuit but (I think?) losing a civil lawsuit probably wouldn't affect anyone's immigration status. Civil lawsuits cannot directly result in criminal convictions, but if MuseGroup won, the court could penalize Xmader with hefty financial fees and order him to delete his GitHub repository and cease sharing any files on IPFS. If Xmader ignores the court orders, that still isn't necessarily a "crime" although the punishment for it looks very much like a punishment for a criminal: The court could "hold him in contempt" and start fining him more for every day of non-compliance, or even lock him in jail until he does whatever the court ordered. But it still wouldn't directly be a "crime" so he would not get a "criminal record". However, to accomplish what MuseGroup asked wouldn't require Xmader's action -- most likely the order could be presented to GitHub and GitHub would take down the repository at that point, even without Xmader's cooperation.

MuseGroup can also push the relevant law enforcement agencies to arrest and charge Xmader with crimes. Generally if prosecutors bring charges they tend to secure a conviction (most agencies have very high conviction rates). It's not clear if MuseGroup would be able to get law enforcement to take this seriously, but if Disney or RIAA stepped in they could certainly make this happen. I have some suspicions that the RIAA doesn't care about this nearly as much as MuseGroup does. This sheet music makes up 100% of Muse's profits but probably less than 0.1% of RIAA's revenue.

See here where a man who has never, ever, stepped foot in America and who (I think?) had no server assets or infrastructure in the USA was arrested by US law enforcement agents in New Zealand at the urging of MPAA/RIAA[0][1].

The next question is whether a criminal conviction for this would result in deportation to China. From what I know about Canada's immigration laws they do take felonies very seriously - if you get a misdemeanor DUI in the USA, you will "never" be allowed to travel to Canada because DUI is a felony there. So they won't even let you in for a week.

However, if the crimes he is convicted of are not too "serious" then Canada as a regular policy, will not deport him.[2] The judge who decides a criminal case can also choose to go lighter on the sentencing (<6 months jail) to specifically avoid deportation. They may do this if they are sympathetic and feel that causing deportation would be cruel and unusual treatment. If they are "serious" crimes, there is a process to ask the Canadian government to "ignore" the crimes for the purposes of deportation. USA has a similar process[3] but there are no guarantees[4]. A man who sold copied CD's was deported in the USA:

However, Canada, like most western countries, has a program for "asylum". There is a process to be recognized as a person who will face cruel/unusual punishment if deported. Asylee's can be deported if they commit crimes while in Canada, but there is also a process for not being deported[5]. Everything related to asylum, immigration, and getting criminal records ignored generally involve very arduous processes and its never clear what kind of outcomes to expect. However, becoming recognized for asylum can be a long and difficult process, and one that Xmader probably has not started.

It's worth hearing some of Xmader's opinions about China and the work he does, as well as hearing him acknowledge how it affects his family[6]. He is very, very stubborn and idealistic. He has made incredible efforts to live in a way that is true to his beliefs. He idolizes Aaron Swartz. It's unlikely that he will fully accept MuseGroup's position without some kind of court intervention.

If MuseGroup has a case w.r.t. the GitHub repository, it's probably much easier and cheaper for them to get a civil injunction against GitHub itself rather than Xmader. GitHub is located in the USA, so you wouldn't need a team of international lawyers, and GitHub is reasonably sympathetic to rightsholders and corporate interests.

0: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/06/mega-victory-kim...

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMas0tWc0sg

2: https://www.legalline.ca/legal-answers/refugees-with-crimina...

3: https://www.uscis.gov/i-601

4: https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/03/justices-reject-immigrant...

5: https://www.legalline.ca/legal-answers/refugees-with-crimina...

6: https://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/663593.html