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Canadian Human Rights Tribunal Issues Internet Hate Decision

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has issued a noteworthy Internet hate decision that focuses on the applicability of the Human Rights Act to Internet hate materials (Globe coverage here).  The Tribunal ordered fines against several individuals for their role in maintaining several hate websites and newsletters.  The lengthy decision is […]

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March 11, 2006 2 comments News

Bill C-60 and Private Copying

While Bill C-60 is history, a specific provision involving private copying merits a brief comment.  The bill's approach to anti-circumvention provisions was generally that circumvention of a TPM was only an infringement where the purpose was to infringe copyright.  There was, however, a notable exception for private copying.  In other words, if you defeated the encryption on a copy-control CD for the purposes of making a private copy, that act would constitute infringement, even if the copying itself was lawful.

The presumed rationale behind this exception was that the private copying levy is supposedly linked to actual copying.  Supporters of the provision argue that the levy can go up or down, depending on that copying.  Assuming a world of ubiquitous copy-controls (that actually work), the levy would decrease to zero since there would be no private copying at all.

 

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March 9, 2006 5 comments News

Keepmusiccoming.com Goes From Bad To Worse

I recently blogged about CRIA's failure to renew keepmusiccoming.com, which it used as part of its "educational" campaign to convince users to stop downloading.  A blog reader has noted that the situation has gone from bad to worse as the site is now owned by a Russian download service offering […]

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March 9, 2006 6 comments News

A Non-Debate Debate With CRIA

CHQR, a Calgary radio station, hosted CRIA's Graham Henderson yesterday for a 30 minute segment in which Henderson went through the CRIA view on P2P, Gwen Stefani downloads, and private copying.  Apparently some listeners found the segment one-sided and the radio station asked if I would provide another perspective.  Both […]

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March 8, 2006 2 comments News

ITU Calls For Enforceable ISP Codes of Conduct to Combat Spam

The International Telecommunications Union is holding a World Telecommunications Development Conference this week and has reportedly used the opportunity to release a new study on combatting spam.  The Financial Times reports that the ITU concludes that while all countries need anti-spam legislation, a more effective approach would be to require […]

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March 8, 2006 Comments are Disabled News