Industry Minister Christian Paradis appeared before the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology last week and was asked what he thought Canadians would say about wireless pricing. Paradis instead indicated what he would tell them:

I would tell them that when we compare with our peers, we are in the middle-average, we dropped down by almost 20% and this is a work in progress. We will continue. We are dedicated to have a fourth player and we will do whatever we can in terms of policy to achieve this. Frankly, so far time gave us reason.

If this is a work-in-progress, is the government prepared to do more?  Apparently it is, as Paradis also told the committee:

When you talk about the roaming and the tower sharing, we announced broader measures, and if we have to intervene more we will.  

The first section of the book features three chapters focused on important administrative law questions about the standard of review as well as an attempt to place the Supreme Court's copyright jurisprudence within a larger context. With all five cases originating with the Copyright Board of Canada, the interplay between the Copyright Board and Canada’s appellate courts is at issue throughout the five cases, with two decisions - Rogers Communications Inc. v Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada and Alberta (Education) both specifically discussing standard of review issues.

I am delighted to report that this week the University of Ottawa Press published The Copyright Pentalogy: How the Supreme Court of Canada Shook the Foundations of Canadian Copyright Law, an effort by many of Canada's leading copyright scholars to begin the process of examining the long-term implications of the copyright pentalogy. The book is available for purchase and is also available as a free download under a Creative Commons licence. The book can be downloaded in its entirety or each of the 14 chapters can be downloaded individually. This is the first of a new collection from the UOP on law, technology and society (I am pleased to serve as the collection editor) that will be part of the UOP's open access collection.

This book features fourteen articles on copyright written by independent scholars from coast to coast. The diversity of contributors provides a rich view the copyright pentalogy, with analysis of the standard of review of copyright decisions, fair dealing, technological neutrality, the scope of copyright law, and the implications of the decisions for copyright collective management.

The revelations came as a result of questions from NDP MP Charlie Angus, who sought information on data, information or privacy breaches in all government departments from 2002 to 2012.  The resulting documentation is stunning in its breadth.

My weekly technology column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that virtually every major government department has sustained breaches, with the majority occurring over the past five years (many did not retain records dating back to 2002). In numerous instances, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada was not advised of the breach.

The Copyright Board of Canada has released a decision in which it admits to palpable error that resulted in a hugely inflated tariff. The case involved a tariff for SODRAC for reproduction of music works in cinematographic works for private use of for theatrical exhibition.  The Canadian Association of Film Distributors and Exporters had proposed a tiered tariff approach of a maximum of 2 cents per copy containing 30 minutes of music or more (less music would result in a lower tariff). The Copyright Board mistakenly established a tariff of three cents per copy, mistakenly treating three tiers as three cents. As the Board now notes:

CAFDE was seeking a rate of 2 cents per DVD copy containing over 30 minutes of SODRAC music; the Board's interpretation leads to royalties that are 15 times higher or even more.

While SODRAC argued that the Board could not correct its error, the Board concluded that it could noting that this resulted in palpable error. Moreover, since the erroneous Board decision actually resulted in higher tariffs than those even requested by SODRAC, it also concluded that procedural fairness was breached. The Board has now suspended the tariff and advised that will issue a new decision in the future.

Jesse Brown had an interesting post  yesterday that raised concerns about the prospect that the government might use mounting fears over cyber-bullying to re-start their failed lawful access legislation. While it is important to remain vigilant about the possibility of the re-emergence of Internet surveillance legislation, I think a more important signal suggests the bill really is dead (at least until after the 2015 election).

First, Bill C-30 actually did include a provision that could arguably be used to help address cyber-bullying. It wasn't the provisions involving privacy and surveillance, but rather the expansion of a Criminal Code provision on harassment. Section 372(3) currently provides:

Every one who, without lawful excuse and with intent to harass any person, makes or causes to be made repeated telephone calls to that person is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.

The limitation to harassing phone calls would seemingly exclude instances of cyber-bullying. Bill C-30 would have made provision technology neutral:

This week's CRTC mandatory distribution hearing has placed the spotlight on a fascinating disconnect between the Commission and the Canadian broadcast community. Despite months of telegraphing its intent to promote consumer choice over broadcaster revenues, the first two days of the hearing have featured repeated presentations from groups who have not gotten the message. CRTC Chair Jean-Pierre Blais could not have been clearer in a speech last October:

In our decision, we noted that consumers increasingly expect to be in control of what they watch. It makes sense that consumers and the distributors who serve them should have more flexibility in packaging choices. While we acknowledged the value of predictable revenues to the programming services, we decided that the days of guaranteed wholesale rates are over. Programming services cannot expect to remain completely insulated from the growing demand for greater choice by Canadians.

He followed that up in March by telling the production community that it "will need to compete, just like any other sector."

Despite the messaging, many of the groups seeking mandatory distribution evidently don't get it.

The CRTC kicked off its two week broadcast hearing on mandatory distribution yesterday with a steady stream of proposals hoping to hit the jackpot by winning mandatory distribution (and guaranteed millions) from cable and satellite distributors. I've written (here and here) about why mandatory distribution should be dropped altogether, but yesterday's hearing provided the best evidence yet. CRTC Chair Jean-Pierre Blais started the hearing by making it clear that the Commission would establish a very high threshold - consistent with the Act - before forcing any Canadians to pay for channels they may not want. Over the course of the day, no one came close to meeting even a low threshold.

As the hearing veered from proposals backed by studies suggesting consumers weren't interested in their product to claims that broadcaster costs were "totally retarded", it became apparent that the mandatory distribution process is a last gasp for many failed, failing or never started broadcast proposals. The Commission heard from channels that broadcast distributors won't carry, that advertisers won't support, that few subscribers pay for, and that don't have any content (user generated content was the answer for two such proposals leading one Commissioner to ask why people wouldn't just watch YouTube). Even the Sun News Network, the headliner of the day, acknowledged that its complaints about undue preference by other distributors would not meet the legal standard, that it is already available to 70% of cable subscribers, and that Videotron, which shares the same parent company, has not placed the channel on basic service, even though it is seeking an order from the CRTC requiring everyone else to do so.