U.S. Copyright Office official Steven Tepp appeared at a Future of Music Coalition debate on ACTA yesterday, arguing that the release of the ACTA text proved the prior concerns wrong. The full debate is available online as Tepp offers gruff responses to fellow panel members, but refuses to answer many […]
Archive for May 26th, 2010
European Parliament Members Follow-Up With WTO on ACTA
The Greens/EFA Members of the European Parliament have written a follow-up letter to the WTO, asking for clarification on whether ACTA might supercede the WTO's own dispute resolution policy.
Youtube as the Musician Discovery Engine
TechCrunch posts an interesting interview with Lady Gaga's manager, who discusses the role of YouTube in finding and breaking new acts, including Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber.
C-29: The Anti-Privacy Privacy Bill
Industry Minister Tony Clement introduced two bills yesterday – the Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act (C-28) and the Safeguarding Canadians' Personal Information Act (C-29). I have spoken positively about C-28 (here, here, and here), which is long overdue and should receive swift passage. By contrast, C-29 is a huge disappointment. The bill is also long overdue as it features the amendments to Canadian private sector privacy law from a review that began in 2006 and concluded with a report in 2007.
Just over three years later, the government has introduced a bill that does little for Canadians' privacy, while providing new exceptions for businesses and new powers for law enforcement (David Fraser has helpfully created a redline version of PIPEDA with the proposed changes). The centrepiece of the bill is a new security breach disclosure provision, but the requirements are very weak when compared with similar laws found elsewhere. In fact, with no penalties for failure to notify security breaches, the provisions may do more harm than good since Canadians will expect to receive notifications in the event of a breach, but companies may err on the side of not notifying (given the very high threshold discussed below) safe in the knowledge that there are no financial penalties for failing to do so.