The Privacy Commissioner of Canada has concluded that the United States did not break Canadian law in a post-Sept. 11 terrorism investigation, even though Canadians' personal banking information was likely handed over to U.S. authorities. Privacy Commissioner Stoddart also found that SWIFT, the European financial co-operative that provides messaging services […]
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The EMI DRM Announcement
EMI and Apple jointly announced today that EMI will be making virtually its entire music catalog available without DRM. Their plan is to offer a higher priced version without DRM and with higher quality sound. This is obviously an important development – there is lots of DRM-free music available from independent labels, but the addition of the world's third largest music label is a game-changer. A few random comments:
Internet Video, Internet Regulation, and Canadian Content
My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) focuses on the growing push from the Canadian broadcasting community to revisit the CRTC's 1999 New Media decision, in which Canada's broadcasting regulator took a hands-off approach to the Internet. The support for greater regulation is often couched in Canadian content terms, but I argue that the current changes have the potential to dramatically alter Canadian content production from one mandated by government regulation to one mandated by market survival.
The issue began to percolate last June, when Canadian Heritage Minister Bev Oda asked the CRTC to conduct a six-month consultation on the effects of changing technology on the radio and television industries. The CRTC report, which was quietly released in mid-December, went almost unnoticed, yet submissions from broadcasters, copyright collectives, and labour unions all point to an increased regulatory role for the CRTC.
The underlying theme of many stakeholder submissions is that unregulated new media represents a threat to the current regulated Canadian content model.
NY Times on C-47
The New York Times covers Bill C-47, including comments from Liberal MP Scott Brison, who says that he will work to amend the bill's protection of generic words.
Lawful Access Second Reading in Late 2008
CBC Online features an interview with Marlene Jennings, the Liberal MP who has brought lawful access back to the legislative agenda. Jennings says that if the Conservatives do not adopt the bill as their own, the bill would come up for second reading late in 2008.
Recent Posts
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 200: Colin Bennett on the EU’s Surprising Adequacy Finding on Canadian Privacy Law 
Debating the Online Harms Act: Insights from Two Recent Panels on Bill C-63 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 199: Boris Bytensky on the Criminal Code Reforms in the Online Harms Act 
AI Spending is Not an AI Strategy: Why the Government’s Artificial Intelligence Plan Avoids the Hard Governance Questions 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 198: Richard Moon on the Return of the Section 13 Hate Speech Provision in the Online Harms Act
