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Thursday January 24, 2013 |
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The Colombian Constitutional court has struck down several copyright provisions on constitutionality grounds, including the country's new anti-circumvention (digital lock) rules.colombia, constitution, copyright Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareThursday January 24, 2013 |
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Friday October 26, 2012 |
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The Supreme Court of Canada yesterday granted
leave for what could be the most important privacy case in
years as it addresses "whether the Personal Information Protection
Act [Alberta's private sector privacy law] is contrary to
s.2(b) of the Charter and if so, whether it constitutes a
reasonable limit in a free and democratic society."
charter, constitution, privacy, scc Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareFriday October 26, 2012 |
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Monday June 25, 2012 |
The House of Commons may have passed Bill C-11, but the constitutional
concerns with the copyright bill and its digital lock rules will likely
linger for years. Many experts believe that the government's
decision to adopt one of the most restrictive digital lock approaches
in the world - it creates potential liability without actual copyright
infringement -
renders the provision vulnerable
to constitutional challenge.
The Department of Justice's take on the constitutional concerns has
long been the subject of speculation, yet the legal opinion is
protected by solicitor-client privilege. However, late last week I
received records from an Industry Canada access to information request
that includes the internal departmental analysis of digital lock rules
that was prepared in advance of Bill C-32. The document
includes a summary of the Department of Justice legal opinion,
information on other Justice legal opinions, and details of concerns
raised internally by the Competition Bureau (the Competition Bureau
concerns will be discussed in a separate post tomorrow). The net result
is that the document confirms that there were concerns within Industry
Canada and from the Department of Justice about the constitutionality
of the digital lock approach. According to Industry Canada's analysis:
TPMs may raise some concerns under
the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, especially with respect to
the freedom of expression entailing the right to access information.
For instance, provisions prohibiting the circumvention of DVD regional
coding may violate the Charter where the user seeks to access
information that is consistent with the rights (s)he may have purchased
and where no copyright infringement occurs (N.B. Notwithstanding the
potential constitutional invalidity of anti-circumvention provisions
re. regional coding, the circumvention may nonetheless be unauthorized
and therefore unlawful under applicable contractual terms).
The key source document is a legal opinion dated March 2, 2007, from
the Department of Justice on the "assessment of potential Charter risks
of prohibiting the act of circumvention of access-control TPMs and the
provision of services or sale of devices to circumvent any kind of
TPM." The opinion, which was likely updated for Bill C-11, is described
in the Industry
Canada summary as follows:
c-11, constitution, copyright, digital locks, doj Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareMonday June 25, 2012 |
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Thursday May 17, 2012 |
Dozens of leading U.S. law professors have written
to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance to express concern about the
lack of constitutional authority to approve the Anti-Counterfeiting
Trade Agreement without submitting it for Congressional approval.
acta, anti-counterfeiting trade agreement, constitution Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareThursday May 17, 2012 |
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