Search Results for "c-11" : 409

The Day the Internet Fought Back

Last week’s Wikipedia-led blackout in protest of U.S. copyright legislation called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is being hailed by some as the Internet Spring, the day that millions fought back against restrictive legislative proposals that posed a serious threat to an open Internet. The protests were derided by critics as a gimmick, but my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes it is hard to see how the SOPA protest can be fairly characterized as anything other than a stunning success. Wikipedia reports that 162 million people viewed its blackout page during the 24-hour protest period. By comparison, the most-watched television program of 2011, the Super Bowl, attracted 111 million viewers.

More impressive were the number of people who took action. Eight million Wikipedia visitors looked up contact information for their elected representatives, seven million people signed a Google petition, and Engine Advocacy reported that it was completing 2,000 phone calls per second to local members of Congress.

The protest launched a political earthquake as previously supportive politicians raced for the exits. According to ProPublica, the day before the protest, 80 members of Congress supported the legislation and 31 opposed. Two days later, there were only 63 supporters and 122 opposed.

The SOPA protest ranks as the largest online action to date, but it was foreshadowed by similar developments around the world.

January 24, 2012 — 74 comments — Columns

The Day the Internet Fought Back

starsopa Appeared in the Toronto Star on January 22, 2012 as The Day the Internet Fought Back Last week’s Wikipedia-led blackout in protest of U.S. copyright legislation called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is being hailed by some as the Internet Spring, the day that millions fought back against […]

January 24, 2012 — Comments are Disabled — Columns Archive

The Behind-the-Scenes Campaign To Bring SOPA To Canada

The Internet battle against SOPA and PIPA generated huge interest in Canada with many Canadians turning their sites dark (including Blogging Tories, Project Gutenberg Canada, and CIPPIC) in support of the protest. In writing about the link between SOPA and Canada, I noted that the proposed legislation featured an aggressive jurisdictional approach that could target Canadian websites. Moreover, I argued that the same lobby groups promoting SOPA in the U.S. are behind the digital lock rules in Bill C-11.

While SOPA may be dead (for now) in the U.S., lobby groups are likely to intensify their efforts to export SOPA-like rules to other countries. With Bill C-11 back on the legislative agenda at the end of the month, Canada will be a prime target for SOPA style rules. In fact, a close review of the unpublished submissions to the Bill C-32 legislative committee reveals that several groups have laid the groundwork to add SOPA-like rules into Bill C-11, including blocking websites and expanding the “enabler provision”to target a wider range of websites. Given the reaction to SOPA in the U.S., where millions contacted their elected representatives to object to rules that threatened their Internet and digital rights, the political risks inherent in embracing SOPA-like rules are significant. [UPDATE: I have a second post that examines how the proposed changes could be used to target Youtube]

The music industry is unsurprisingly leading the way, demanding a series of changes that would make Bill C-11 look much more like SOPA.

January 23, 2012 — 77 comments — News

Cory Doctorow on the War on General Computing

CBC’s Spark has a 30 minute podcast interview with Cory Doctorow that expands on his war on general computing essay with considerable discussion on Bill C-11 and digital locks.

January 23, 2012 — 1 comment — News

Copyright and the Right

Last night’s Republican presidential candidate debate featured a question on SOPA, leading all four remaining candidates to register their opposition to the bill. Their positions are consistent with the growing trend on the right in the United States as it the Republicans that are increasingly opposed to SOPA and PIPA with Democratic supporters left to wonder why their representatives remain so out-of-touch with the popular view of the public (this morning Democrat Senator Reid announced a delay in the vote on PIPA). In fact, it isn’t just Republican politicians who are opposed to overbroad copyright reforms: the right-leaning press and conservative think-tanks are expressing the same views. None of these groups or politicians can be accused of being soft on crime or weak on intellectual property. Rather, they recognize the need for government to tread carefully and to ensure that legislative initiatives do not undermine basic freedoms and personal property rights.

The opposition to SOPA is not limited to the right in the United States. In Canada, Blogging Tories, which aggregates dozens of right-leaning blogs, went dark in support of the SOPA protest and the National Post was the only major Canadian paper to publish an editorial on the issue, concluding:

On Wednesday, Wikipedia and a handful of other sites will shut down in protest of SOPA and PIPA. They have our full support. Governments should not be in the business of propping up outdated business models, nor of blocking legitimate speech. This draft legislation would do both.

January 20, 2012 — 13 comments — News