The European Parliament Legal Service has issued a legal opinion on the disclosure of ACTA documents to the European Parliament. It concludes that persistent failure to do so could lead to legal action.
With the Canada - European Union summit underway this week, the European Parliament has just passed a resolution that calls on Canada to support even greater ACTA transparency and to shift the negotiations to an international organization such as WIPO. The full paragraph within the resolution states that the European Parliament:
Hopes that Canada will fully support the EU's request to open up the ACTA negotiations to public scrutiny, as it requested in its resolution of 10 March 2010, and to have those negotiations conducted under the auspices of an international organisation, the most suitable being WIPO;
In the aftermath of its success in promoting release of the ACTA draft text, it is interesting to see the European Parliament becoming increasingly vocal about the ACTA negotiations. Canada has remained generally silent on these issues and the EP resolution may help coax out a response.
Earlier this week, I spoke at a hearing on ACTA at the European Parliament. Media coverage of the talk is available here. The slides are posted below with full audio and video to come shortly.
The European Parliament today overwhelming approved a resolution on ACTA calling for transparency and raising concerns about substantive elements in the treaty such as the prospect of three strikes and personal border searches. The final vote was 633 in favour, 13 against, and 16 abstentions. The final approved text raises further issues:
the European Parliament "deplores the calculated choice of the parties not to negotiate through well-established international bodies, such as WIPO and WTO, which have established frameworks for public information and consultation"
It says "further ACTA negotiations should include a larger number of developing and emerging countries, with a view to reaching a possible multilateral level of negotiation"
provides that "any agreement must include the stipulation that the closing-off of an individual’s Internet access shall be subject to prior examination by a court"
warns that "ACTA provisions, notably measures aimed at strengthening powers for cross-border inspection and seizure of goods, should not affect global access to legitimate, affordable and safe medicinal products – including innovative and generic products – on the pretext of combating counterfeiting"
As for next steps, the European Parliament clearly wants action as the resolution also states that it "stresses that, unless Parliament is immediately and fully informed at all stages of the negotiations, it reserves its right to take suitable action, including bringing a case before the Court of Justice in order to safeguard its prerogatives." This marks a major step toward ACTA transparency, highlighting the near-unanimous discomfort with the process and substance of ACTA to date.
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)
Ted Menzies, the Minister of State for Finance, yesterday delivered a talk
on the Canada - EU Trade Agreement that marked an important shift in
the government's rhetoric on the agreement. Aside from a bizarre
reference to the value of the agreement being $17 trillion dollars
(total Canadian GDP is $1.8 trillion), the talk is most notable from the
move away from promising swift completion of the agreement. After years
of setting missed deadlines, Menzies now says there is no deadline for
completion, suggesting that the government is beginning to hedge on
whether there even will be a deal. I wrote about the prospect of the agreement dying altogether last month.Apr.11/13Comments (0)
Peter Nowak is back with another thorough debunking of many of the wireless myths about the competitiveness of the Canadian market. Apr.11/13Comments (0)
Peter Nowak has a great post
that takes another look at the state of the Canadian wireless market.
Nowak uses the latest data from Bank of America Merrill Lynch Wireless
Matrix to find that the Canadian carriers' ARPU ranks as the highest in
the world, that profit margin is the fifth highest in the world, and
that Canada's smartphone penetration is not nearly as strong as some
suggest.Mar.18/13Comments (2)
The European Commission's Joint Research Centre has released a report that finds that online music piracy does not harm sales. The report
examined the browsing habits of more than 16,000 European consumers. It
found that an increase in clicks on infringing sites led to a small
increase in clicks on authorized music sales sites.Mar.18/13Comments (2)
