Archive for September 8th, 2006

30 Days of DRM – Day 21: Print Disabilities (Circumvention Rights)

DRM has the potential to impede access for all Canadians, however, one group may be particularly hard hit by widespread DRM use and anti-circumvention legislation.  Those with print disabilities (called perceptual disabilities in the Copyright Act) rely on new voice technologies to gain access to works that they are physically unable to view.  DRM can be used to limit or eliminate the use of technologies to read text aloud, thereby rendering it inaccessible for a segment of the population.  Indeed, for those that think this is a mere fairy tale, one of the better known instances of "read aloud" restrictions involved the Adobe eReader, which restricted the reading aloud function for Alice in Wonderland (the same technology was later at the heart of the Dmitry Sklyarov case).

The Copyright Act contains a specific provision to address access for the print disabled.

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September 8, 2006 Comments are Disabled News

PIPEDA and Order Making Power

The deadline for submissions to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada's PIPEDA review consultation passed yesterday (given that I sit on the Commissioner's advisory board I did not enter a submission).  The consultation raises a number of key issues including order making power, reporting mechanisms, and general strengthening of the national […]

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September 8, 2006 2 comments News

Is RIM’s Pearl a Ringtone Killer?

Bob Lefsetz astutely points out that RIM's new Pearl device not only features a music player, but also permits users to use the songs they upload as ringtones.

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September 8, 2006 1 comment News

G2P

Barry Ritholtz highlights an emerging P2P music file sharing service: Google.

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September 8, 2006 Comments are Disabled News