Wired:Last week, I spent far too many hours observing the minutiae of Canadian politics. For the Americans that surround me, that probably counts as one of those "cruel and unusual punishments" that their constitution haphazardly forbids. Canada here is often seen as a dull grey shadow of the United States, writes Danny O'Brien

I don't think Canada as a whole minds. Partly because Canada doesn't mind much (as opposed to the United States, which is frequently furious about a great deal), but mostly because Canadians are confident they will get the last word. This week, unusually, that last word was reserved for those Canadians using Facebook.

America, furious once again, has been lobbying its northern neighbour for years to "improve" its copyright law to match America's. I place quotation marks around "improve" because, from many Americans' point of view, the United States intellectual property policies have been sliding downhill for many decades.

In the past few weeks, the minority Conservative government in Canada has made noises about introducing the Canadian equivalent of the dreaded Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The act, as regular readers will know, was a Hollywood- sponsored bill aimed at combating the spread of the net that has been a thorn in the side of technologists and net users in the United States ever since its introduction in 1998. It makes bypassing copy-protection a crime: even mentioning how to do so is against the law.

Europe passed its own copyright act a few years ago and Australia passed its version recently, but Canada has no such law. The US has constantly criticised its northern brother, listing it in the US's "pirate nations" watchlist in the annual US Special 301 intellectual property law review of trade partners.

Canada has had a chance to see the "benefits" of the act. Russian visitors have been arrested at tech conferences in the United States under it.

Dutch security researchers have refused to enter the country and declared that they cannot risk publishing studies that show key parts of modern digital copy protection systems are fundamentally flawed.

Recently, the whole point of these copyright act anti- circumvention provisions has been rendered moot. The music industry has belatedly realised that copy-protection in a digital age is a fool's errand, and has finally begun releasing its music online in the unprotected, and insanely popular, MP3 format.

Films are still locked behind the copy-protection of the DVD player (which is why DVD players get cheaper and smaller, but no smarter). No innovators can legally break through the cartel's control of what DVD players can legally do with their content, but it is surely only a matter of time before they too face reality.

The US government, following commands from an industry that is growing too weak to care, continues to hammer on Canada for not falling into line.

This summer, the US ambassador pounced upon the new government and once again began its plea. The new Canadian industry minister, Jim Prentice, eager to comply, set about introducing the Bill that the Americans wanted.

That set off a firestorm of protest. Prentice was perhaps unaware that even a watered- down version of the American demands was examined by Canadian interest groups and rejected.

Unlike the United States, in Canada many creators oppose the heavy-handed approach of the recording industry. Leading artists such as Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne and Broken Social Scene broke away from the Canadian equivalent of the RIAA to form a group that was against suing filesharers and pro liberal copyright reform.

The Songwriters Association of Canada has recently proposed a flat-fee charge for net users that would allow them to share as much music as they can download for a small fixed fee: anathema to the American model of litigation against net innovations.

Prentice also seemed ignorant of the power of net- driven politics. Within days of hearing about his intention to introduce the bill, dozens of citizens mobbed his constituency Christmas party to ask him questions (and bring his chosen charity extra food donations: the Canadian way of protest). More than 20,000 Facebook users joined an organising group on that social networking service - according to reports, nearly one in four adult Canadians are members.

Protests were plotted, letters were written. "How Did Copyright Become Cool?" asked the Globe and Mail, Canada's newspaper of record.

How cool? Cool enough to persuade Prentice to cancel the announcement of his bill not once, but twice in a week. The minister's hesitancy showed his confusion at the unprecedented popularity of copyright. What used to be an obscure corner of the law has now become a major consumer issue - or at least it has for those consumers able to mobilise and socialise online.

In the end, Prentice postponed his Bill's announcement to 2008, giving the government plenty of time for the public consultation that might correct Canadian concerns. It does the raise the question, though: if Canadians can get this excitable about intellectual property, what happens when they start using the same tools for other civic ends? Canada may show its fury yet.