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Archive for February 19th, 2007
Hill Times on Net Neutrality
The Hill Times covers the growing lobbying effort in Canada around the net neutrality issue with news that Amazon.com has regularly visited Ottawa to discuss the issue, Rogers claims it doesn't block packets (it might have noted that it limits bandwidth for applications though) and Bell Canada implausibly claims that […]
The Recording Industry’s Digital Strategy Out of Tune
My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) begins with the following:
Ten years ago, as the Internet began to mushroom in popularity and emerging technologies enabled consumers to make near-perfect copies of digital content, the recording industry emphasized a two-pronged strategy in response to the changing business environment. First, it focused on copy-control technologies, often referred to as digital rights management (DRM), that many in the industry believed would allow it re-assert control over music copying. Second, it lobbied the Canadian government for a private copying levy to compensate for the music copying that it could not control.
While the industry’s approach proved successful on the legal front – the 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization’s Internet Treaties established legal protections for DRM and Ottawa introduced a private copying levy on blank media such as cassettes and CDs in 1997 – the strategy’s effectiveness has long been subject to debate. The week of February 5th may ultimately be viewed as the beginning of the end of that debate. That week, which began with Apple CEO Steve Jobs calling on the industry to drop DRM and concluded with the Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC), the collective that administers the private copying levy, applying for its dramatic expansion, leaves little doubt that the recording industry got it wrong.
The column proceeds to discuss the failure of DRM and the mounting pressure on the industry to drop it.
Recording Industry’s Digital Strategy Out of Tune
Appeared in the Toronto Star on February 19, 2007 as Recording Industry's Off-Key Strategy Ten years ago, as the Internet began to mushroom in popularity and emerging technologies enabled consumers to make near-perfect copies of digital content, the recording industry embarked on a two-pronged strategy in response to the changing […]


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The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 185: Bill C-11 at the CRTC – A Preview of the Upcoming Online Streaming Act Hearing