Archive for June 10th, 2011

Canadian Chamber of Commerce Justifies Fake Counterfeit Claims With More False Numbers

Earlier this week, I posted on how the Canadian IP Council, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s IP lobby arm, floated false claims about the scope of counterfeiting in Canada in an attempt to bolster claims for increased border measures. That was followed by a post yesterday on Professor Edward Iacobucci’s debunking of the Chamber’s report on Canadian patent law, which he found to be deeply flawed. In response to my first post, the IP Council’s Chris Gray tweeted responses that the Chamber does not want individual travellers searched and that its claim of $30 billion in losses from counterfeiting in Canada comes from a recent International Chamber of Commerce report.

The retraction on border searches of travellers is good news, though the Chamber should seek to publicly correct the Globe and Mail, which reported otherwise. Moreover, given that some of its members have publicly stated their opposition to the de minimis provision in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement – GlaxoSmithKline has said the exclusion of traveller’s luggage “sends out an entirely inappropriate message” – its position on the issue may not be cast in stone.

Even more notable is the suggestion that the Canadian Chamber of Commerce is now basing its $30 billion counterfeiting claim on the 2011 International Chamber of Commerce report.

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June 10, 2011 70 comments News

Will Microsoft vs. i4i Patent Case Influence Canadian Law?

Professor Norman Siebrasse on why it won’t: the statute is different, the precedent is different, and the U.S. Supreme Court expressly did not consider policy arguments.

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June 10, 2011 2 comments News

Rogers Faces Yet Another Net Neutrality Complaint

Teresa Murphy has filed another complaint against Rogers over its Internet traffic management practices, claiming its alleged fix of problems with World of Warcraft have not worked.

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June 10, 2011 Comments are Disabled News

Access Copyright Claims Pay-Per-Use Licences Create Incentive to Infringe

Access Copyright has issued a response to the AUCC complaint over its decision to stop issuing pay-per-use or transactional licences. The complaint arises from requests from universities to license individual works so that they can be used with payment and without risk of copyright infringement. Access Copyright is refusing to issue such licences, offering only a more expensive blanket licence that requires universities to license use of the entire repertoire. The Access Copyright response bizarrely claims that pay-per-use licences actually create incentives to infringe and that blanket licences are more appropriate in the digital economy. Never mind that Access Copyright offers transactional licences to corporate customers. Never mind that millions of cultural products are licensed individually and that the Internet and new technologies make it easier to do so. 

According to Access Copyright, since copying is now easier, a blanket licence is needed to guard against any potential uncompensated use:

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June 10, 2011 30 comments News