Canada's new SOPA-style copyright bill could shut down YouTube

Michael Geist sez,

Recent revelations that the content industries are demanding that Canada implement SOPA-style provisions into its copyright law have raised concerns the law could be used to target legitimate sites. Industry lawyers say there is no reason for worry, yet an analysis of the proposed law set against the claims made by Viacom against Youtube show that there is a very real possibility that new law could be used to target the Internet's most popular video site.
That would create a huge chill in the investment and technology community in Canada. Online video sites, cloud computing sites, and other online services may look at the Bill C-11 and fear that even a lawsuit could create massive costs, scare away investors, and stifle new innovation. Indeed, a recent study by Booz & Company found this to be a very real problem, with a large majority of the angel investors and venture capitalists saying they will not put their money in digital content intermediaries if governments pass tough new rules allowing websites to be sued or fined for infringing digital content posted by users. The U.S. has dropped for SOPA, but now incredibly Canada may consider the very provisions that causes investors to become skittish.

Would a SOPA Version of the Canadian Copyright Bill Target Youtube?

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Business • canada • Copyfight • sopa

More at Boing Boing

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Hackers prepare for first "national holiday" in their honor

Ed Ligget. Tuba.

Hey Canada. Please stop trying to copy the bully down the street. We liked you much better when you quietly went your own way.
- danick
  
  To insist Canada or any other country on the planet is unable to make up it’s own mind regarding Copyright policy and their people’s concerns and freedoms is a disrespect to all Canadians. Canada is not dependent of the U.S. to decide for them.
  - http://openid.aol.com/heatwaveo8 Ryan
    
    While that may be true, if the bill completely resembles SOPA, we in the United States consider it as being just as big of a threat to our freedoms as SOPA was. If any legislation in any other country will completely shut down an innocent United States web site, it is wrong in our view. As a web developer, I know how things work. If web site users post illegal content, it is NOT THE WEB DEVELOPER’S FAULT! It is THE USER’S FAULT! To shut down a web site is utterly wrong, unless the developers themselves uploaded the content, or unless they receive a complaint about something a user has posted and they take absolutely NO effort to obey commands! That is exactly why the people of the United States spoke up a few days ago. In YouTube’s case, whenever they receive a request to take down a video, they do a good job fulfilling it. Just as United States citizens have come to understand the details of SOPA and PIPA, Canadians should read their bill and protect any web site where the users of the site are at fault, and utterly destroy any web site where the developers are at fault. Sorry if this sounds a little harsh, but the people of the United States are ANGRY! The people in other nations should have listened up by now.
    - danick
      
      “If web site users post illegal content, it is NOT THE WEB DEVELOPER’S FAULT! It is THE USER’S FAULT!”
      
      A Website doesn’t run itself Ryan, and the websites that have a hands-off approach with regards to content being up-loaded and Broadcasted to the public by their users may want to re-think that?
      Further to that, I’m not sure how many DMCA take down notices you’ve sent out?, but for the content owners to be put in a position to contact the same website for the same user for the same account and for the exact same content that was “removed” minutes earlier may be the reason SOPA/PIPA and ACTA came about?
      
      “Sorry if this sounds a little harsh, but the people of the United States are ANGRY! The people in other nations should have listened up by now. ”
      
      You don’t come across harsh Ryan, what ever that may be worth?
      After all the attention to SOPA/PIPA the world could not help but tune in.
      Most can not find where it’s censorship anymore than what’s applied to Television, Radio, or any other form of Public Broadcasting.
      The Internet isn’t a New-World Ryan, why so many think laws and regulations don’t apply to the Internet is a complete mystery.
      - http://openid.aol.com/heatwaveo8 Ryan
        
        I never said the web site ran itself, how did you come to that? Again, you’re talking to a web developer here. Without videos, the Internet would sure be a boring place. If you shut down illegal video uploading on sites like YouTube in the way you’ve described, you also shut down legal video uploading by everyday individuals who own copyrights to their own videos, because they’re all made possible via the same web code. What should instead be done is very hefty fines should be placed on people who upload illegal content, and very hefty fines should be placed on companies if their complaint ends up being false. I agree more should be done to protect content, but to shut down the web site as a whole and sue and imprison the web developers as written in SOPA is a joke.
      - danick
        
        Ryan as it stands right now ISP’s hosting, billing, … all have a lovely thing called “Safe-harbor” to hide behind, the general public not so lucky.
        The one’s being sued – the public, while the bad players on the Tech side hide behind safe-harbor.
        And unless it can be proven that a website is dedicated to hosting infringing content no judge would order the whole site shut.
    - http://twitter.com/Tun_da Tun_da
      
      I seems to me that most Americans didn’t even read the bill they signed a petition against. I know its long, but letting blogs, google and wikipedia do your reading for you isn’t always going to be the most accurate substitute. Did you read C-11 Ryan?
      - http://openid.aol.com/heatwaveo8 Ryan
        
        You’re probably right, but the U.S. bill was only something like 30 or 40 pages, so it’s easy for the people to be able to read them. In contrast, many of the trashy bills that Obama has put down our throat were over 2,000 pages. I haven’t read the entire SOPA bill, but enough of it to anger me. And given what I did read, the critics’ point of view is correct, which is why the tech companies are winning this battle. It’s way too vague. That being said, I only heard about the Canada bill today, so no I haven’t been able to read it yet… only responding based on this article.
      - DanMcD
        
        If you’re going to demand that anyone actually read the full text of any bill they express an opinion on, perhaps you should start with Congress?
    - Benjamin Eugene NElson
      
      So Danik, how long have you worked for the recording industry?
      
      I’m just curious.
  - Niel de Beaudrap
    
    You write this as though this policy has anything to do with Canadians’ concerns and freedoms. I find that our current government’s policies are remarkably detached about these things.
    - Jasmin Haviland
      
      This. Your average Canadian has significantly less ability to effect anything than your average American. Maybe, though, Harper might listen to Google.
  - Robbrownaswood
    
    I’m in Canada and yeah we follow US a lot in these matters moreso with our Neocons elected. A whole country has no one identity, the decision makers follow the money.
- http://twitter.com/Tun_da Tun_da
  
  Why why why would Canada want to copy what the US is doing? Im all for reasonable treaties and establishing “best practices” but there is a multitude of reasons most Canadians are very proud to be. One of those reasons is our respect for each other (which, as crazy as it may sound, includes other peoples hard work)
- Mantissa128
  
  We’re sorry.
danick

The vast majority of Canadians (who are familiar with Copyrights) are in complete agreement that the Bills before the house are both needed and welcomed.

Canada is signatory to ACTA, and I don’t think that will change unless a valid argument is presented. The internet is Free will not work, for what should be obvious reasons.

Very few (if any at all) well rounded and informed thinkers in Canada see the Bills as an attempt to hinder free speech, and no one I’ve contacted see the legislation as censorship. “ACTA and C-11 are long over due!” is the consistent statement.

Of course the open-source free from any law and regulation internet thinkers are on a different page, however no one with the power to hold-up the Bill will pay much attention if the people screaming no ACTA or C-11 aren’t even reading from the same book.
- dolo54
  
  I think the Dude said it best. “Yeah well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.”
  - danick
    
    It’s very disturbing to read that we think the Canadians are lost and confused without U.S. input
    
    “Yeah well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man. Cause it’s like total censorship and freedom removing speech if I can’t get to illegal websites and shit. Like who do they think they are man! I have rights with the constititionality you know!”
    
    “IP protections? What does Internet Protocol have to do with the issues at hand. As Abraham Lincoln once said, it’s “better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” IP protections… Sheesh! ” ya think?
    - dolo54
      
      So you’re saying that Canadians should pass this bill out of some sort of nationalistic sense of spite? lol okay. How about rephrasing the argument, instead of “Canadians are lost and confused without U.S. input”, you state the real argument: “Copyright trolls are lost and confused without intelligent input” or how about “Entertainment companies seek to control the internet in order to fatten their bottom line at the expense of hundreds of thousands of jobs in the technology industry, inevitably leading to the stifling of innovation and the contraction of the economy.”
      - danick
        
        Intelligent, insightful, and very well thought out, thanks for that.
- nem0fazer
  
  As a Canadian I’d just like to say. No. Please don’t presume to speak for us.
  - danick
    
    I don’t, in fact I live in the states. I do have a family member who sits in the house however.
    And the first question asked is whether or not the Bill was even read and understood
- Cory Doctorow
  
  If that’s so, then
  
  1. Why did the ministers who drafted C-11′s previous incarnation refuse to meet with the owners of independent Canadian labels and studios, preferring to meet with US-based multinationals (in the personage of CRIA, etc) instead?
  
  2. Why did Minister Moore admit that the consultations in the previous Parliament indicated widespread *disagreement* with the digital locks provisions?
  - danick
    
    I remember when Canada sent out new letters, created websites that invited all people to take part in the discussions. In fact people could log-in and voice concerns and comments during a live broadcast.
    Perhaps the people in the U.S. can feel as though they were left out of the process, but no Canadian can make that claim with any legitimacy.
    
    As you know Cory ACTA has been in the process since 2007, not just since google posted it last week.
    Of course all countries had to consult with all other countries regarding any copyright modernization; Canada and the U.S. are signatory to ACTA after all.
    
    The digital lock debate, do you need me to to point out what happened?
    - chenille
      
      Asking Canadians for their input and then doing what they didn’t want is not the same as including them in the process. Besides, that wouldn’t answer either question anyways.
      - danick
        
        Did you voice your concerns at the many many town-halls held across Canada in every Province, the fact-to-face meetings in every province, the On-line debates open to everyone when the Canadian Government began discussing the Copyright Modernization Act in 2007 chenille?
    - Cory Doctorow
      
      Canadians were never invited to comment on ACTA. It was — notoriously — conducted entirely in secret. Speaking as a former WIPO negotiator, I can tell you that conducting plurilateral copyright negotiations in secret is without precedent.
      
      Sure, tell me about the digital lock debate. You mean when thousands and thousands of Canadians (along with authors, film makers, software developers, law professors, economists, security experts, educators, etc etc) filed comments overwhelming opposed to it, and Ministers Moore and Clement (who, like their predecessors all the way back to Sam Bulte, refused to meet with Canadian creators and industry groups and *exclusively* consulted with US-led industry groups and the USTR) ignored them?
      - danick
        
        “Canadians were never invited to comment on ACTA. It was — notoriously — conducted entirely in secret.”
        I thought the headline: Canada’s new SOPA-style copyright bill could shut down YouTube was in connection C-11?
        
        ACTA as you know is a done deal no point even going there.
        
        Cory is it possible for me to up-load the latest C-11 Bill here?
    - Mantissa128
      
      Danick, powerful corporations do not send letters or register their intent on websites. They show up personally and meet with the Prime Minister and other key dignitaries. They lobby face-to-face, and donate huge sums of cash.
      
      Why do you think a tepid pulse-taking measure by our government would yield a reliable indicator of public opposition?
      
      You don’t imagine the government thinks that, do you?
    - DearThey
      
      ”But Mr. Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months.” ”Oh yes, well, as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn’t exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything.” ”But the plans were on display…” ”On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.” ”That’s the display department.” ”With a flashlight.” ”Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.” ”So had the stairs.” ”But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?” ”Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display on the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.’”
      - Douglas Adams
      
      Just sayin’
    - Robbrownaswood
      
      ACTA was started in a hush hush backdoor manner with no public input at all just like the recent bills. You know content creators are not in the scope of aid with these new restrictions and provisions and it will lead to huge gouging of taxpayer money to police the internet. Main fact is, we humans should not even see or hear some piece of work without paying for the privilege in the eyes of copyright owners (who may have very little to do with the work remember)…
- chenille
  
  This could use some serious citations, because a lot of informed Canadians do not like these bills, for much the same reasons similar provisions were opposed in the US. I haven’t seen a poll, but consistent seems unlikely.
  
  You mention having a family member in the House – are you maybe making the serious mistake of thinking they make a representative sample? Because politicans aren’t quite, ever. And they’re even less so than usual with a minority government that keeps close control over its party members.
  
  Also, talking about whether or not Canada is reliant on the US to decide things for them is disingenuous. It’s not, but many of the issues and interests they face are similar.
  - danick
    
    but many of the issues and interests there are similar – due to ACTA maybe?
    - chenille
      
      Sure, in part due to ACTA, signed by both countries. Is this your citation that Canadians all like the provisions that Americans are rejecting, or are you changing the subject?
      - danick
        
        What “subject”? SOPA/PIPA/ACTA/Copyrights in general?
- Shinkuhadoken
  
  Actually, the vast majority of Canadians are against SOPA-like legislation, as any poll would tell you. Canadians value free speech, and rules which make it trivial to permanently remove access to websites based on unsubstantiated claims that circumvent the court system is contrary to Canadian values. There’s more at stake than just copyright, but political speech, and any subject matter that any one group would find objectionable.
  
  The only ones for SOPA are the usual Big Content suspects. The CRIA, for example, represents a grand total of zero Canadian artists, clearly funded by and representing only the interests of its American counterpart.
  
  It’s one thing to say that it’s up to Canadians to decide for themselves to pass this SOPA-like legislation, but this is largely out of our hands. This wasn’t an election issue for us, and with a majority government, there are few avenues in which the Canadian people can influence Harper’s rule. If passed, it either comes down to overturning the law in court, if it violates the Charter, or waiting several years for the next election and hoping the next government will overturn this.
  
  However, the Internet is a big deal to Canadians, and if things like YouTube were to disappear over Conservative legislation, you can bet the Prime Minister will be hounded to no end until he changes his mind.
  - danick
    
    “If passed, it either comes down to overturning the law in court, if it violates the Charter, or waiting several years for the next election and hoping the next government will overturn this.”
    
    It’ll pass, Harper is clear on that, has been for some time now.We studied the Canadian Charter and if C-11 was in direct violation, it isn’t.
    
    “It’s one thing to say that it’s up to Canadians to decide for themselves to pass this SOPA-like legislation, but this is largely out of our hands.”
    
    On that we agree; this has been on the house floor for years, stopped due to Harper not having a majority, as you know that changed.
    
    “However, the Internet is a big deal to Canadians, and if things like YouTube were to disappear over Conservative legislation, you can bet the Prime Minister will be hounded to no end until he changes his mind.”
    
    So far so good on the pot laws, Harper’s a complete hard-ass, ultra conservative and not a fan of illegal anything.
    - CCinBmore
      
      Wait, did you just say
      
      We studied the Canadian Charter and if C-11 was in direct violation…
      
      “We”? Until now I had concluded that you were just a garden variety troll but now I’m thinking you perhaps have some skin in this game. Fess up.
    - Mantissa128
      
      Ha – I thought my comment about Parliament Hill earlier was a joke. Please go back to your masters and tell them you have failed.
- davidasposted
  
  Wait, what?
  
  I’ve heard of astroturf before but I have never knowingly seen it occur until today. Your assertion that ACTA and C-11 are widely supported in Canada is simply false.
  - danick
    
    That really depends on which on-line personal diary you read.
    I was referring to what the Canadian Government put out.
    
    Wait, what … maybe the Canadian Government was lying
    - davidasposted
      
      Ah, you mean the Conservative government, which represents 37% of the voting public. Not the opposition parties — which have declared their opposition to C-11 — which represent a majority of the voting public.
      - danick
        
        does the public vote on C-11?, no would be the answer to that, Canada’s elected officials do.
        Best of luck with any attempts bulldozing Harper!, if there was ever someone who would act out of spite, it’s Harper!
      - davidasposted
        
        You are correct. The current political system in Canada definitely does not adequately represent or serve the will of Canadians.
      - danick
        
        I’m as freaked out about all the new Bills as everyone, who wouldn’t be?
        But I do feel that unless I change my mode of thinking and start looking at the real problems with the Bills fuck all will change.
        Censorship! I can yell – I was told it wasn’t (because it isn’t.)
        Freedom of Speech – no constitution protects any criminal activity is what I was told.
        Now what? Youtube off-line?
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        danick,
        
        You’ve made more than half the comments on this thread. Take the rest of the day off.
    - rrh
      
      Policy requires that you phrase that as “maybe the Harper Government was lying.”
      
      To which I can say, “Politicians? Lying? I’m shocked, shocked at the mere suggestion.”
- Mantissa128
  
  I suspect your IP could be traced to Parliament Hill, sir.
Mujokan

YouTube is a great firewall. (Not like the great firewall of China, I mean in the original sense of firewall.) Google is a massive, powerful company, and indirectly a lot of its money comes from playing rather loose with copyright. It’s lucky for us they got up and running before all this crap started happening. They provide a great example of the upside of network externalities. We’d really be screwed if we had only Apple and no Google. (I think there also used to be a company called Microsoft but I don’t know what happened to them.)
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_5GQSHIV27WVIOYKGAFXWVQL4UU super

Seems like SOPA/PIPA are just for diverting the people from knowing about ACTA. It’s ACTA that needs to be blocked. Come together to stop ACTA!
- danick
  
  ACTA was signed back in 2011, you’re a little late super.
  The final countries are signing ACTA tomorrow in Tokyo, if you hurry you just might be able to stop them!
manicbassman

this is the problem with legislation… they may claim they don’t intend to use it in that way, but as sure as eggs is eggs, as soon as it’s on the statute books, some law firm or prosecuter or whatever will do just that… take the letter of the law and apply it to anything they think fits it… it happened in the UK with RIPA… was vastly misused by local authorities using it to place intercepts onto ordinary people to find out if they were making false applications for school places and also was used to get the car and address details of people whose dogs had been caught on CCTV fouling the pavement and they’d tracked them back to their cars using said CCTV…
- Guest
  
  As a dog owner who would NEVER leave a mess behind (dog even carries her bag dispenser St. Bernard-style) I simply don’t see a problem with using CCTV to catch people who can’t have the common courtesy to clean up after their dogs on public property. That kind of negligence happens simply because people think as long as no one is watching they can get away with it.
  
  If a police officer could ticket you for doing something, there’s no reason why a CCTV operator shouldn’t for witnessing the same thing. Tracking innocent people because of their appearance or what have you is wrong, tracking someone back to his car and running their plate because you saw him leave dog crap on the sidewalk is another.
  - manicbassman
    
    my POINT, is that the legislation was passed as an Anti-Terrorism bill granting surveillance and interception powers to certain public bodies who actually needed them… but the vast majority of usages of it are for purely civil matters with absolutely no terrorist angle at all… Local councils were added later to the list of applicable public authorities who it applied to as a tidying up exercise under false pretences
    
    http://www.no-cctv.org.uk/blog/ripa_powers_and_councils_misuse_of_surveillance.htm
5onthe5

Isn’t there a good chance that Google is richer than Canada?
- Shinkuhadoken
  
  Canada had a GDP of $1.758 trillion last year, so… no.
trina pina

Canada, shut up. You’re just Canada.
- http://twitter.com/Tun_da Tun_da
  
  I rest my case. Reason #200000000046 that Canadians have very little interest in following the example of the US. Thanks for reminding me why I insist on dealing with 40 below windchills and visiting the doctor whenever I feel the need ; )
- Niel de Beaudrap
  
  Kindly direct your arrogant disdain towards our current government. You seem to speak a similar dialect of English as they do; if you tell them to knock it off, maybe they’ll actually listen. Thanks!
Guest

yeesh… I’m getting a little tired of this “could shut down X” rhetoric. Swine could become airborne (and they most certainly have, but I wouldn’t call it controlled flight.)

Could Canada target youtube for legal action? Sure. Anyone could. I could sue Youtube if I wanted to. Is Youtube going to get shut down for it? If all the governments that declared Youtube illegal to visit couldn’t do it, how is a copyright infringement claim going to?

Youtube is US based. Worst-case scenario, Youtube would end up blocked in Canada, but not shut down.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  yeesh… I’m getting a little tired of this “could shut down X” rhetoric.
  
  Waiting until everything has gone to hell and you no longer have any options for redress has been demonstrated as a failed strategy on numerous occasions throughout history.
Adam Corriveau

I have to say, I read many comment sections of various SOPA and PIPA articles, nothing impresses me like the Canadian response. I see valid arguments and well thought out debates. While we don’t have the support here that anonymous gives the US, we do have OpenMedia http://openmedia.ca/

That being said, I do not agree that any government should control over the internet. It is global, it is limitless.

@danick: You are a well informed individual. Thank you.