YAFFE: HARPER OVERPLAYS HAND IN ATTACK ON CRITICS

Critics charge legislation could cripple the electronic highway, shutting down even sites that don’t break their own country’s laws

OTTAWA — U. S. copyright legislation, that if passed, could have serious consequences for Canadians, was met with protest across North America as websites on both sides of the border went dark on Wednesday to register their displeasure.

Led by the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia, many Canadian and U. S. websites shut down temporarily to protest two pieces of legislation winding their way through the U. S. Senate and House of Representatives that would, according to critics, cripple the Internet.

Canadian copyright expert and University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist also says the Stop Online Piracy Act [ SOPA] would have the power to affect Canada, shutting down websites for copyright infringement even if they aren’t running afoul of Canadian laws.

“The goal in many ways of SOPA is to reach beyond the borders of the United States,” Geist said. “It’s Canadian sites and sites around the world that would find themselves a target for these kinds of actions.”

The proposed law would require U. S. Internet service providers to block access to any site accused of posting, or linking to, copyrighted content. It also would force search engines to remove the offending sites from their databases and prevent advertisers from giving the site their business.

The proposed law would spill over U. S. borders because, Geist explains, it is written so any website domain name registered in the United States is treated as if it were a U. S. page. That means any website that ends in . com, . net or . org — Postmedia News’ website, canada. com, included — accused of breaching copyright could be blocked by a U. S. court. Because Canadian and U. S. copyright laws differ, a website could be taken down for breaking U. S. provisions, without breaking Canadian law.

Richard Walker, a spokesman for Industry Minister Christian Paradis, said the government is keeping an eye on developments south of the border.

“Many countries are looking at the best ways to combat pirated and counterfeit goods in the digital era,” Walker said. “Our government will be closely monitoring this U. S. bill with a view to protecting the interests of Canadians, from those who create content to the consumers who will benefit from it.”

Geist pointed to the works of Ernest Hemingway as an example of how the U. S. law would affect Canadians. In the U. S., copyright extends 70 years after the death of, in this case, the author. In Canada, that period is only 50 years, meaning Hemingway’s works have entered the Canadian public domain.

Under SOPA, if a Canadian website were to post the works of Hemingway now, Geist said, that website could be found by a U. S. court to be breaching U. S. copyright and be shut down, even though it is entirely legal in Canada.

Canadian- based Tucows. com is one of the largest wholesale registrars of website domains in the world. Beyond registering website names, Tucows also has a software hosting service.

CEO Elliot Noss said SOPA could cripple Tucows’s services, before the company is given the chance to respond to any copyright infringement claims.

“It’s not as if you’re going to have the individual or the site that’s affected have the opportunity to contest whether you’re dealing with actual infringement,” according to Geist, of a site that was blocked.

Noss said his company is responsible for tens of millions of domain names. “We could be asked to remove websites from the Internet where there has not been due process or there has not been sufficient notice.”

Beyond that, if a user were to post any software to their hosting service that a company complained was infringing on its copyright, it could cause Tucows itself to be shut down.

Pointing out one of the oddities of the proposed law, Geist said SOPA would make illegal what the U. S. government currently promotes overseas.

“One of the reasons that people find SOPA so objectionable is the very software that even the U. S. State Department is promoting in China and elsewhere that can be used to circumvent things like the Great Chinese Firewall,” he said.

That type of software would be illegal to distribute to get around SOPA, if it is passed.