Yesterday I appeared at the European Parliament's INTA Workshop on the
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. I have written a
commissioned
report for the committee on ACTA that should be released in a few
weeks. In the meantime, my prepared
remarks provide a good overview of the main arguments and this video provides a
quick ten minute presentation on why ACTA's harms outweigh its
benefits.
The European Commission, which has been a staunch supporter of the
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, today announced that it is referring ACTA to the European Court of Justice to determine
whether ACTA is incompatible - in any way - with the EU's fundamental
rights and freedoms. While the move may mean European delay of ACTA
ratification, it comes
as a growing number of countries and European Parliament members signal
their willingness to vote against the agreement.
Latvia has become the latest European country to freeze
ratification of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and Germany
has said
it will await the European Parliament vote before deciding whether to
sign the agreement. The moves comes as the mainstream media takes
increasing notice of the ACTA protests (coverage from the Economist here)
and continent-wide protests are
planned for Saturday.
Bill C-56, the anti-counterfeiting bill that opens the door the Canadian
implementation of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, has been
referred to the Industry Committee for review. The government imposed
time allocation on the bill to move it to committee. The debate on the bill
yesterday suggested that all parties support the premise of the
legislation, but the opposition wants further study and potential
amendments. Perhaps most troubling was the intervention of the Liberal
party, who are seeking to extend the bill to seizures of in-transit
shipments. In Europe, in-transit shipment seizure provisions have led to
seizures of generic pharmaceuticals, creating a major
access-to-medicines concern.Jun.13/13Comments (0)
Ariel Katz reports that the University of Toronto has notified
Access Copyright that it will not extend the current licence agreement.
It points to a range of factors - the SCC decisions, copyright reform,
and open access among them - to argue that there should be substantial
reductions in the royalty rate. The university is open to negotiating a
new agreement with that in mind. Meanwhile, Western is adopting much the
same position, notifying Access Copyright that it will not be renewing but leaving the door open to a new agreement with reduced fees.Jun.11/13Comments (0)
The Canadian Library Association issued a statement
late last week on the Access Copyright lawsuit filed against York
University, urging it to abandon the lawsuit and pointing to several
legal concerns.May.21/13Comments (0)
The National Post reports
that the Competition Bureau of Canada plans to launch an investigation
into Google Canada. The scope of the investigation is unknown.May.21/13Comments (0)
The Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy, and Ethics has released its study on privacy and social media.
The report includes recommendations for new Privacy Commissioner
guidelines. The NDP supplemented those recommendations with nine
additional legislative proposals that include mandatory security breach
disclosure, order making power for the Privacy Commissioner of Canada,
and the inclusion of privacy issues as part of a national digital
economy strategy.Apr.23/13Comments (1)
The federal government has responded
to a question from MP Charlie Angus on privacy and security breaches by
revealing that there have been thousands of breaches over the past
decade. The stunning response acknowledges over 3,000 breaches that have
affected over a million Canadians.Apr.23/13Comments (0)
The debate over the state of wireless competition in Canada continues to rage. Last week, I appeared on CBC's The Current,
as part of a 30 minute segment devoted to the wireless industry. The
issue was also discussed during Question Period at the House of Commons,
with Industry Minister Christian Paradis focusing on competition and consumers:
We want to enhance competition and investment in this country, and
this is why we adopted this policy back in 2008 for the AWS spectrum.
Let me say that the price went down by an average of 11% since then, and
we will continue this way with the 700 megahertz spectrum. We launched
consultation with the industry to make sure that we enhance competition
and provide better choice and better rates for our consumers.
OpenMedia has an interesting post
that takes a close look at the claim that the large Canadian geography
is responsible for high cell phone prices. The post notes that coverage
actually focuses on as little as 20 percent of the country. Apr.22/13Comments (0)
