|
Thursday December 27, 2012 |
From the remarkable battle over the Stop Online Piracy Act to the
massive public backlash against Internet surveillance in Canada, law and
technology issues garnered headlines all year long. A look back at 2012
from A to Z:
A is for Astral, the Canadian broadcasting giant that was to be sold to
Bell Media for over $3 billion. The CRTC blocked the sale on the grounds
that the companies failed to demonstrate the transaction was in the
public interest.
B is for Jean-Pierre Blais, the newly appointed chair of the Canadian
Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. Blais surprised the
industry by adopting a strong pro-consumer approach during his first
months on the job.
C is for the Copyright Modernization Act, the copyright reform bill that received royal assent in June 2012.
D is for Dean Del Mastro, the Peterborough Member of Parliament who raised the spectre of regulating online anonymity.
E is for the European Parliament, which voted overwhelmingly to reject
the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement after hundreds of thousands of
Europeans protested against it.
F is for FreeDominion.com, an online chat site that defeated a claim of
copyright infringement involving the posting of portions of newspaper
articles.
G is for GeoCoder, a small Ottawa company that created a crowd-sourced
database of Canadian postal codes. Canada Post objected to the database,
filing a copyright infringement lawsuit.
H is for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which seized
bodog.com, a domain name owned by Canadian online gambling tycoon Calvin
Ayre.
I is for Industry Minister Christian Paradis, who failed to unveil a
digital economy strategy, despite a commitment to do so by year-end.
J is for Jones v. Tsige, a landmark Ontario Court of Appeal decision that recognized a new tort for invasion of privacy.
K is for Keatley Surveying v. Teranet, a proposed class action lawsuit involving copyright claims over land surveys.
L is for levies on microSD cards. After a copyright collective asked the
Copyright Board of Canada to impose new fees on the cards, the
government issued a regulation effectively blocking the request.
M is for McMaster University, one of several Canadian universities that were hit by security breaches.
N is for Nexopia, a Canadian social media service that was found to have
violated privacy laws following a lengthy investigation by the Privacy
Commissioner of Canada.
O is for an open textbook initiative launched by the British Columbia
government that will support the creation of dozens of new freely
available online textbooks.
P is for the constitutionality of privacy legislation, which was thrown
into doubt in United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 401 v. Alberta
(Attorney General), an Alberta Court of Appeal decision.
Q is for the Queen v. Cole, in which the Supreme Court confirmed that privacy rights survive in the workplace.
R is for Rogers v. SOCAN, one of five copyright cases released by the
Supreme Court in July 2012 that shook up the Canadian copyright
landscape.
S is for the Stop Online Piracy Act, the controversial U.S. legislation
that sparked global protests including a Wikipedia blackout.
T is for TellVicEverything, the grassroots Twitter campaign protesting against Canadian Internet surveillance legislation.
U is for Untied.com, a gripe site about United Airlines run by Jeremy
Cooperstock, a McGill professor. United demanded that Cooperstock take
the site down due to trademark and copyright claims.
V is for Voltage Pictures, which launched proceedings to obtain personal
information on thousands of Canadian Internet users alleged to have
downloaded its films.
W is for a wireless code of conduct, which the major wireless carriers
asked the CRTC to establish after several provinces moved to create
provincial codes.
X is for dot-xbox, one of thousands of proposed new domain name extensions.
Y is for Yelp, the review site that hosted criticisms of an Ottawa
restaurant that ultimately led to a criminal libel conviction after the
restaurant owner sought revenge for the negative review.
Z is for Judge Russell Zinn, a federal court judge who confirmed that
the patent for Viagra was invalid days after the Supreme Court voided
the patent for failing to provide sufficient disclosure. Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareThursday December 27, 2012 |
|
|
Tuesday January 11, 2011 |
Predictions about the upcoming year in technology law and policy in
Canada are particularly challenging given the prospect of a possible
election. My weekly technology law column (Toronto
Star version, homepage
version) notes that while there is no shortage of potential new
laws - bills on
privacy, copyright, and lawful access are all before the House of
Commons - an election call before the fall would likely mean that those
bills would die on the order paper.
With political uncertainty clouding even the best crystal ball, the
Supreme Court of Canada is set to emerge this year as the place where
much of the action will take place. Canada’s highest court has
lined
up a tech-heavy docket that will have a major impact Canadian law.
Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareTuesday January 11, 2011 |
|
View
|
|
|
Tuesday January 11, 2011 |
Appeared
in the Toronto Star on January 9, 2011 as Supreme Court Will Lead Tech
Law in 2011
Predictions about the upcoming year in technology law and policy in
Canada are particularly challenging given the prospect of a possible
election. While there is no shortage of potential new laws -
bills on privacy, copyright, and lawful access are all before the House
of Commons - an election call before the fall would likely mean that
those bills would die on the order paper.
With political uncertainty clouding even the best crystal ball, the
Supreme Court of Canada is set to emerge this year as the place where
much of the action will take place. Canada’s highest court has
lined up a tech-heavy docket that will have a major impact Canadian
law.
First up is a series of decisions arising from hearings last
fall. These include Masterpiece Inc. v. Alavida Lifestyles Inc.,
a trademark law case that raises questions about the standard for
likelihood of confusion between two competing trademarks. There are
also several cases involving access to government information under the
Access to Information Act. With the mounting interest in open
government and access to public documents, the cases will help identify
how far the current legislation extends.
The most anticipated Internet law decision is Crookes v. Newton, a case
that will determine the potential liability for hyperlinking.
Given the widespread use of links in emails, webpages, Facebook
updates, and Twitter postings, the prospect of being held legally
responsible for the content on the page being linked to could have a
chilling effect on Internet speech.
The court has already agreed to address at least two additional cases
this year with major implications for the Internet. In March, it
will be asked to consider the limits of Internet jurisdiction in an
appeal of Black v. Breeden, Conrad Black’s lawsuit over postings such
as press releases and reports on the Hollinger International, Inc.
website that he claims were defamatory.
When Black sued the company’s directors, advisers, and one company
employee for defamation in Ontario, the defendants in the case brought
a motion to dismiss on jurisdictional grounds, arguing that the
province was not the appropriate venue for the case since both
Hollinger and Black are located in the U.S. In a unanimous
decision issued last summer, the Ontario Court of Appeal sided with
Black, noting that the press releases posted on the Internet
specifically provided contact information for Canadian media and that
the company "clearly anticipated that the statements would be read by a
Canadian audience and invited Canadian media to respond."
Later this year, the court will hear at least one case that examines
the scope of the Copyright Act’s fair dealing provision. At issue is
whether "research" within fair dealing can be extended to song previews
that are made available on sites like iTunes where a consumer can
freely listen to roughly 30 seconds of a song.
The Copyright Board of Canada ruled in 2007 that a broad and liberal
interpretation of fair dealing meant that it could be included since
the preview was effectively consumer research on whether to purchase
the song. The Federal Court of Appeal affirmed the Copyright
Board's interpretation last May, opening the door to many other
consumer research possibilities under the current fair dealing
provision.
With a second fair dealing case involving copying in schools also a
distinct possibility for a high court hearing, the Supreme Court is set
to play a lead role in technology law in 2011 regardless of what
transpires on the political front.
Michael Geist holds the Canada
Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of
Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He can reached at mgeist@uottawa.ca or online
at www.michaelgeist.ca.
Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareTuesday January 11, 2011 |
|
|
Tuesday December 28, 2010 |
The past twelve months in law and technology were exceptionally active,
with the passage of anti-spam legislation, record penalties for
violating the do-not-call list, and relentless lobbying on new Canadian
copyright legislation. A look back at 2010 from A to Z (Toronto
Star version, homepage
version):
A is for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which
concluded in
October with a watered-down treaty after the U.S. caved on several
controversial Internet issues.
B is for Black v. Breeden, an Ontario Court of Appeal ruling
involving
postings on the Hollinger International, Inc. website that Conrad Black
claimed were defamatory.
C is for Crookes v. Newton, the high-profile Supreme Court case
that addressed the liability hyperlinks between websites.
D is for the do-not-call list, which gained new life when the
CRTC
pressured Bell into paying $1.3 million for multiple violations of the
list rules.
E is for the Electronic Commerce Protection Act, the initial
name of
Canada’s anti-spam legislation that received royal assent in December,
six years after a task force recommended new Canadian spam laws.
Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareTuesday December 28, 2010 |
|
View
|
|
|
