Archive for April 25th, 2008

Public Policy Forum Disinvites Knopf from IP Symposium

Howard Knopf reveals that the Public Policy Forum, which is hosting a symposium next week on intellectual property in Ottawa (I am on a panel), has disinvited him.  Knopf suggests that the move comes as a result of "strong pressure was brought to bear on PPF" and that "PPF capitulated." 

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April 25, 2008 13 comments News

More Support for CAIP

L'Union des Consommateurs, a leading Quebec-based consumer rights group, has filed a submission in support of CAIP in the Bell throttling case.  Meanwhile, the CRTC has posted hundreds of comments from individual Canadians who are also siding with CAIP.

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April 25, 2008 3 comments News

Canada Remains in Good Company in USTR Special 301 Report

The U.S. Trade Representative has released its annual Special 301 report, in which it criticizes dozens of countries over their intellectual property laws while ignoring its own shortcomings.  Despite demands from the copyright lobby that Canada be placed on the "Priority Watch List," Canada is again on the lower level […]

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April 25, 2008 8 comments News

Canada Remains in Good Company in USTR Special 301 Report

The U.S. Trade Representative has released its annual Special 301 report, in which it criticizes dozens of countries over their intellectual property laws while ignoring its own shortcomings.  Despite demands from the copyright lobby that Canada be placed on the "Priority Watch List," Canada is again on the lower level […]

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April 25, 2008 Comments are Disabled Stop CDMCA

CAIP Responds to Bell Throttling Submission

CAIP has submitted its response [update – now online] to the Bell throttling submission and it does not pull any punches:

It is also clear from Bell's Answer that it fundamentally misunderstands (or has consciously misrepresented) several key facts and issues that are of direct relevance to the issues under consideration in this proceeding, including, most significantly, the nature of the local access and transport service that Bell provides to its wholesale customers, the extent to which its DPI "traffic shaping" technology interferes with both the content and privacy of end-user communications, and the tremendous impact that its traffic shaping practices have had – and are continuing to have – on competitors, their end-users customers and providers of new media content that make use of P2P applications to deliver content to their on-line users, listeners and viewers.

CAIP continues to focus on the competitive implications (and rationale behind) Bell's throttling, arguing that:

There is also uncontradicted evidence . . . that strongly suggests that the reasons behind Bell's decision to throttle its competitors' GAS traffic have little to do with Bell's unsubstantiated claims of "network congestion" and more to do with a desire to lessen competition in retail telecommunications markets. There are far too many "coincidences" between the timing of the initiation of Bell's throttling practices and the timing of a number of other events in order to conclude otherwise.  

The CAIP submission also includes some interesting new allegations. 

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April 25, 2008 25 comments News