| As a Canadian your freedom to torrent is probably greater than your American buddies - the legality of downloading is murky, though uploading is most definitely illegal. Last I checked the two largest ISPs in Canada (Rogers and Bell) both throttle file sharing protocols, though my information may be out of date. But we're not talking about your right to be a pirate, we're talking about something much more fundamental - i.e., freedom of speech. We're talking about your ability to go online and talk shit about your neighbor, your city councilman, your MP, your Congressman, your Governor General, or your Prime Minister. As a Canadian myself, I can tell you that the US takes a much stronger stance in favor of freedom of speech than Canada (or really, any Westminster system country today) and has consistently erred on the side of preserving speech moreso than Canadians - to the point where some Canadians consider the US stance to be rather extreme (e.g., malicious but truthful attacks are not consider libel nor defamation). As far as protections for both political expression as well as creative expression (i.e., the arts) the US is one of the strongest (if not the strongest) in the world - and this is coming from a Canadian who's mostly cynical about American politics. The claim that the US is the most free (in terms of speech) country in the world isn't just typical pompous American exaggeration, there is a lot of meat behind the claim. |
But I'd say it evens since the US seems to push the limits of prosecution on free speech and Canadian authorities just don't really seem to bother.
As for the incidents of lawsuits mentioned in other comments I can't say I've ever heard of them not that it matters but what I'm saying is it seems rare for anyone to go to that extreme.