Jan 29, 2012
Ottawa law professor warns that SOPA-style laws could be on their way to Canada
Recently, both the SOPA and PIPA bills were halted indefinitely following a massive online protest by Wikipedia and other large websites. Despite this, the bills are expected to be revived in February, and following the abandonment the U.S. responded by shutting down the “cyber locker” storage website Megaupload.com.
Here in Canada. University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist feels that Canadians should be concerned that SOPA-like rules could find their way north of the border sooner rather than later. On his personal website here, Geist warns that Bill C-11, which will come before the House of Commons once again in the coming weeks, should be of concern to Canadians. It is set to update the dated Copyright Act for the modern technological age.
His main concern is the expansion of the “enabler” provision, which would allow industry groups to go after not just sites that house copyright-infringing content, but also sites that “enable” copyright infringement and copyright-infringing acts. Submissions from music industry groups that are lobbying for this expansion suggest that neither due process or proof of infringment will be required.
The Legal Post ran an article on Geist’s warnings here, which also contain comments to the contrary from leading IT/IP lawyer Barry Sookman of McCarthy Tétrault LLP in Toronto. Sookman counters that the enabler provision in Bill c-11 contains a list of six factors that must be satisfied and that it is not “remotely possible” that large mainstream sites such as YouTube could be caught within the provision.
In sum, you can read the Legal Post’s coverage of this debate here, and read Michael Geist’s original post on his personal website here.
