Archive for January, 2012

Music Industry Sues Government of Ireleand Over Copyright Reform

The major record labels have filed a lawsuit against the Government of Ireland over delays in introducing legislation permitting ISPs to block access to websites. Record label executives complain that the government has not shared advance copies of proposed legislation and so filed a lawsuit instead.

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January 12, 2012 1 comment News

KEI on Canada’s Entry to TPP Negotiations

KEI has responded to the USTR’s request for comment on Canada’s proposed entry into the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations. Its response identifies several issues including concerns over the inclusion of copyright term in the agreement.

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January 12, 2012 Comments are Disabled News

Lockdown: The Coming War on General-Purpose Computing

Cory Doctorow has an exceptional essay on the legislative and political battles that start with copyright but don’t end there.

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January 12, 2012 1 comment News

Are Canada’s Digital Laws Unconstitutional?

One of the first Canadian digital-era laws was the Uniform Electronic Commerce Act, a model law created by the Uniform Law Conference of Canada in the late 1990s. The ULCC brings together officials from federal, provincial, and territorial governments to work on model laws that can be implemented in a similar manner across all Canadian jurisdictions.
While a federal e-commerce law may have been preferable, the constitutional division of powers meant that it fell to the provinces to enact those laws.

The provinces took the lead on e-commerce legislation in the late 1990s, but over the past decade it has been the federal government that has led on most other digital rules, including privacy legislation, the anti-spam statute, and proposed digital copyright reform. Those efforts are now in constitutional limbo following the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent ruling that plans to create a single securities regulator are unconstitutional.

The December securities regulator decision concluded that the national approach to securities regulation stretches the federal trade and commerce clause too far into provincial jurisdiction. The court ruled that most of the securities regulatory activities deal with day-to-day contractual regulation within the provinces and that “these matters remain essentially provincial concerns falling within property and civil rights in the provinces and are not related to trade as a whole.”

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes the repercussions of that decision may be felt far beyond just securities regulation. For example, federal privacy law may now be particularly vulnerable to challenge since it relies on the same trade and commerce provision.

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January 11, 2012 7 comments Columns

Are Canada’s Digital Laws Unconstitutional?

Appeared in the Toronto Star on January 8, 2012 as Are Canada’s Digital Laws Unconstitutional? One of the first Canadian digital-era laws was the Uniform Electronic Commerce Act, a model law created by the Uniform Law Conference of Canada in the late 1990s. The ULCC brings together officials from federal, […]

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January 11, 2012 Comments are Disabled Columns Archive