This week I did something that I haven’t done since Grade 4. I wrote (by hand), not one but TWO letters to Members of Parliament.

Two weeks ago, I couldn’t have picked Jim Prentice out of a line-up. This week though, I penned a letter to the Industry Minister to notify him that his proposed copyright legislation was standing directly in opposition to the innovation that drives the cross-media industry. And it worked.

There have been a few articles about this enormous push from consumers/producers to re-evaluate the legislation, including The Globe and Mail and Sympatico MSN. Most of the credit goes to the Facebook group now over 25,000 strong – but I think that this may be overlooking someone who may be emerging as one of the most powerful forces in Canadian politics today: Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing.net.

Yes it’s very true that Michael Geist has been instrumental with his blog and a rallying point for those who want to know how they can act. Jesse Brown has also won many back to the CBC and his show Search Engine with his head-on reports about this issue, including gathering pointed questions for Mr. Prentice to answer. With all respect to Geist’s work his site has been launched to superstar status by Doctorow’s support. Let’s look at some of the stats.

In the last month, Doctorow has written 18 posts on the subject of Canada’s new copyright legislation. Only 6.5% percent of BoingBoing.net visitors come from Canada (Alexa), which puts this issue on a very international stage. It’s obvious that Doctorow hasn’t put away his Canadian passport and continues to bring these issues to the forefront of the internet. Just in case the Honourable Mr. Prentice doesn’t understand the impact his nemesis brings to the table, consider this:

BoingBoing.net became one of the Top 1000 websites on the planet in 2006 (Alexa), and is ranked 4th most popular weblog in the world (Technorati). Just to put this in context, there are 15,514 sites linking in to BoingBoing, but only 1,039 sites linking in to the ENTIRE Government of Canada presence online. By my pseudo-math, this means that Doctorow (one of six featured writers at BoingBoing) is (15,514 / 6 = 2586, then 2586 / 1039 = 2.5) two and a half times more effective at disseminating a message online than all Canadian government initiatives COMBINED.

I have a feeling that this week’s outcome of delayed legislation regarding copyright can be traced in large part to the actions of one individual. Yes I wrote a letter and so did many hundreds (or even thousands). But I did so because Cory told me to do it. Perhaps Prentice would be well advised to schedule a little of his time ‘in consultation with Canadian producers and consumers’ to speak to a politician blogger who wields more power outside the House than many of those sitting inside it.