Why Canadians Should Worry About SOPA (and What They Can Do About It)

If you spend any time on the internet at all, you've probably heard of the "Stop Online Piracy Act" (or SOPA) and its deplorable piece of partner legislation in the US Senate, the "Protect Intellectual Property Act" (or PIPA). If you attempted to access many large sites around the internet today, you would have noticed that many of them are blacked out in protest of of these new American bills. Perhaps you hail from a different part of the globe—like we here Canadians at Hex19—and you're wondering why you should concern yourself with the dull intricacies of American politics. Here's why SOPA will have massive implications for not only the USA, but also for Canada, and for the internet as a whole.

Overreaching Jurisdiction

The United States already has a set of unfair copyright laws that were set up to combat online piracy within the jurisdiction of American law enforcement. What SOPA/PIPA adds is a way for Americans to attack domains and IP addresses registered in other countries, even though the Internet is an international resource.

If an internationally based website is accused of hosting content that infringes on US copyrights, SOPA allows US law enforcement to remove the site in question from the Domain Name System (DNS) record. The DNS acts as the phonebook of the internet, translating the domain names into the numbered IP addresses that they actually represent. If an accused site is expunged from the DNS, it becomes inaccessible to the internet as a whole. SOPA and PIPA grant the US international powers that far overreach their traditional jurisdiction.

America's intellectual property law strategy operates on the premise of passing their own legislation first, before aggressively exporting the same policies to other nations. After the DMCA was passed, it wasn't long before other countries were pressured into following suit. Canada’s Bill C-11 and the French HADOPI law are very similar to the DMCA.

What Hurts America, Hurts Us Too

Almost every Canadian utilizes internet resources that are based in America. Anytime you upload a photo to Facebook, watch a YouTube video, or leave a comment on Reddit, you're interacting with an American company. If passed, SOPA will forever change how these companies do business. The bill makes the operators of community sites liable for all of the content posted, even if it was shared by a single user in violation of that site's terms of service. A single piece of user-posted copyright infringing content could spell the end that website forever. These community-based sites will either have to alter their structure to the point where they're so restrictive that they're essentially useless, or risk being shutdown by the American government. What good is Facebook if you can't post photos and videos, or even share some song lyrics as your status?

Sites based around user-generated content will have to overhaul how they work in order to avoid SOPA's aggressive take-down strategy.

SOPA even has provisions against linking to pages the host infringing content. It would allow US law enforcement to pursue search engines for cataloging offending sites. This means that Google would be responsible for ensuring that each of the over 1,000,000,000,000 (yes, 1 trillion) URLs in their database are free of any sort of copyright infringement. Even if each of Google's 30,000 employees devoted themselves to monitoring these URLs for any hanky panky on a weekly basis, each one of them would have to check 52 pages per second, day and night. Sure, Google has some very talented engineers, but not that talented.

But What Can We Do About It?

It's sad, but true that Canadians can't do much to combat SOPA/PIPA directly. We can try emailing American congressmen and senators expressing our concerns, but they usually ignore the wishes of even their own constituents, so this having any effect is doubtful. By raising awareness about these issues, we can hopefully inform more Americans about the problems with these new bills. Something we can fight directly is the creation of similar laws internationally.

In Canada, frightening provisions are being brought forth in reforms to copyright law that take away the rights of Canadian citizens without benefiting content creators. Pieces of legislation like Bill C-11 make it illegal to circumvent any kind of digital lock, even if doing so would normally be considered fair use. Restrictions like these hinder the Canadian education system, and negatively impact the ability of Canadian artists to display creativity. They even prevent Canadians from backing up and enjoying the content that they have purchased. Unfair copyright law reform isn't limited to North America.

Internationally, trade agreements like the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) threaten to remove basic personal rights such as the freedom of communication or expression. ACTA policy mandates service providers to catalog and store the personal information of their clients in an attempt to hunt down law breakers. It also makes copyright infringement a criminal offense, allowing for invasive searches and arrests based on no probable cause.

The best thing to do is learn as much as you can about SOPA and PIPA, as well as any related pieces of legislation that apply to your country of residence. Although it is offline in protest today, Reddit's Sopa page is usually an excellent resource. Then become active! Write, phone, email or meet with your local representative, and share your concerns about copyright reform. When you have the chance, use your most powerful personal right for good, and elect candidates that support a free and open internet. If we stand idly by, there is no telling how much damage will be done to both the internet and our personal rights and freedoms.

Stay tuned to The Hex19 Geekcast for more updates on SOPA/PIPA. If you have any questions about these pieces of legislation, leave a comment and we'll do our best to answer them. 

Comments

[Kiersten Gurry]

I love that Facebook image. Very well stated. Thanks for showing your support for the STOP SOPA cause.

Kiersten Gurry
First Impression Security Doors