These aren’t exactly great times to be in the news business. Newspapers, in particular, have been suffering with rapidly shrinking ad revenue, especially in the United States. Total advertising sales in 2011 were half – yes, half! – of what they were in 2005, according to data complied by the Newspaper Association of America. It’s not surprising, then, that more than 3,700 layoffs were reported at newspapers across the U.S. last year, up from the 2,900 layoffs in 2010.

Ad revenues have not dropped as precipitously in Canada but staff at newsrooms north of the border have also been shrinking. Canada’s largest former newspaper chain, CanWest Global, cut about 800 jobs, or 13 per cent of its workforce, in 2009, shortly before the company entered bankruptcy protection. Postmedia Network took over the newspapers and quickly started cutting even more jobs, announcing last year plans to shed the equivalent of roughly 500 positions. Quebecor Inc., meanwhile, revealed in November its plans to cut 400 jobs from its Sun Media division.

The main reason for all this is that the business model of the news industry has been radically altered due to the emergence of new media. This isn’t really all that new or all that surprising, and it’s not just the news media that’s being affected. The recording industry, the film industry, the television industry – they have all been hurt by rapid changes in communications technology that have undermined the traditional methods through which they made money.

The entertainment media has an advantage the news media doesn’t, however. It has the ear of lawmakers.

Powerful lobby groups representing the recording industry and motion picture industry, in particular, have helped craft legislation that would protect their outdated business models by creating strict new criminal and civil penalties along with sweeping government powers to shut down access to websites for purported copyright violations.

In the United States, these bills are known as SOPA and PIPA, and they have created a firestorm of controversy recently. A wave of online protests, most notably the 24-hour “blackout” of Wikipedia, prompted U.S. lawmakers to take a step back, at least momentarily. Several of the bills’ original sponsors admitted they needed to re-work the legislation, but SOPA and PIPA are still on the table and this story is far from over.

A similar thing happened in Canada a few years ago when the previous Conservative minority government tried to introduce new copyright legislation. A massive public uproar, largely online, prompted the government to back off – again, temporarily. The main issue at the time was a provision which would make it illegal for consumers to circumvent “digital locks” placed on media content or electronic devices. Yet, that same controversial provision is contained within the new copyright legislation before the House of Commons now.

While the methods are different – the power to block access to websites versus the power to prosecute breakers of “digital locks” – the strategy behind the legislation in both the United States and Canada is the same. Governments are trying to re-create an outdated media environment in which content producers maintained far more control over content once it was released into the marketplace.

The digital age, of course, has brought with it a vastly different media environment. And while we agree that updated copyright laws are necessary to reflect this new reality and protect the rights of both content producers and distributors, the proposed legislation on both sides of the border goes way too far, sacrificing individual rights and even freedom of speech in a clumsy attempt to protect old business models.

Adapting is painful, as we in the news industry know, but it’s part of being in business. The government, however, shouldn’t be in the business of protecting particular industries’ antiquated revenue streams at the expense of virtually everyone else.