The federal Conservative government is fast learning that Canadians are a lot more tech savvy than their elected leaders.

There's little doubt that the government thought it could introduce a strict copyright law without much controversy. After all, when the Liberals tried it several years ago, the only people complaining were librarians and teachers.

Now, even the suggestion that a new law would put restrictions on how people can use the technology they own, such as computers and video recorders, created such a firestorm of protest that the government abandoned plans to introduce its new Copyright Act.

It was feared that the government was simply copying the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which favours corporations over consumer. That sparked the outcry against a law that would have made illegal many routine actions by teachers and consumers such as copying a CD onto a computer hard drive or using teaching materials printed from the Internet.

The government won't say when it will unveil its new version, but it could be months away.