No Internet Lockdown

According to copyright experts, giant media conglomerates are lobbying for Internet lockdown powers allowing them to:

Cut your Internet access for no good reason.

Remove or hide vast swaths of the Internet

Lock users out of their own services (already proposed legislation!).

Taken together, these policies would fundamentally change the Internet, severely limit free expression, and hogtie innovators.

A similar scheme in the US led to a huge public outcry forcing Big Media lobbyists to back off from their plan to impose the now-infamous SOPA and PIPA¹ legislation. Now, those lobbyists are turning to Canada through legislation like Bill C-11 and trade agreements called ACTA² and TPP³. Please sign the Internet Lockdown petition today →

Details

Internet law expert Michael Geist recently revealed that behind-the-scenes, Big Media is pushing for powers that include website blocking⁴, Internet termination for unproven allegations of infringement⁵, and huge threats for sites that host user-generated content (like YouTube)⁶ in addition to the “most restrictive digital lock provisions in the world,”⁷ which are already in Bill C-11.

This approach is backwards: it suffocates online choice and it’s patently unfair.

It's time for policy makers to stop listening to megacorporate lobbyists and work to put Canada on the map as a leader in Internet openness and affordability.

Tell the Prime Minister and the Industry Minister to say no to the Internet lockdown before it's too late. →

Resources

*Having trouble with this form? Click here. 52,254 people have signed (and counting).

No Internet Lockdown is supported by a coalition of organizations including:

Looking for Canadians Against SOPA? We’ve archived it here. You can also find our original copyright petition here.

Footnotes

[1] The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a U.S. bill that, alongside its sister bill PIPA, is designed to block offshore websites that are associated with copyright infringement. SOPA would allow a judge to order any Internet service provider to block a website and any links to it, including links from websites like Google, Wikipedia, or Reddit. It would effectively give the US government and private corporations the power to cripple sites that allegedly—but not conclusively—make unlicensed use of copyrighted content.

[2] Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in an international intellectual property enforcement treaty, primarily lobbied for by big industry in Europe and the U.S. According to the EFF, ACTA raises "significant potential concerns for consumers’ privacy and civil liberties for innovation and the free flow of information on the Internet legitimate commerce and for developing countries’ ability to choose policy options that best suit their domestic priorities and level of economic development."

[3] The The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) is a multi-nation trade agreement that will rewrite the global rules on intellectual property enforcement, and as such could limit the future of the open Internet. Currently U.S. negotiators are pushing to include copyright measures that are far more restrictive than currently required by international treaties (including ACTA). For more, check out the EFF’s backgrounder here.

[4] Big Media is pushing for C-11 to include the power for courts to issue injunctions ordering ISPs to block access to websites.

[5] Many proposed amendments include rules that mean accused (i.e. not necessarily convicted) “repeat infringers” could have their Internet connections terminated.

[6] This refers to the proposed changes to the “enabler provision” that would make the provision overly broad and could be used to target legitimate websites that host user generated content. Those websites—including YouTube —could be penalized for hosting content that Big Media controls.

[7]The “digital locks” provision of Bill C-11 would render illegal common practices that most people have been engaging in for years. In short, companies can build “locks” into software or hardware, and anyone cracking those locks—either to share content or to modify and even just accessing the content they've purchased—would be breaking the law. For more, see Peter Nowak’s analysis here. Michael Geist’s quote cited above can be found here.