Archive for July 17th, 2008

Supreme Court of Canada Rejects Privacy Commissioner Blood Tribe Appeal

The Supreme Court of Canada has rejected the Privacy Commissioner of Canada's appeal in the Blood Tribe case. The case raised questions of solicitor-client privilege in the context of PIPEDA investigations.

61 Reforms to C-61, Day 19: TPMs – No Exception for Digital Archiving

Earlier this week, the U.S. Library of Congress issued a report on digital archiving in which it expressed concern about the obstacles created by DRM to the preservation of digital materials. This concern – which the Canadian government addressed in a narrow context for the Library and Archives Canada legal deposit program in 2006 – remains a major issues for archives across the country. Incredibly, Bill C-61 leaves the issue virtually untouched, potentially shutting out archives from preserving Canadian history in digital form. The bill includes a limitation on liability for archives for circumvention (Section 41.19 provides that archives that circumvent without awareness of a legal violation do not face financial damages) and lists archival interests as a potential factor for new exceptions, yet there is nothing to ensure that digital archiving is not locked out due to anti-circumvention legislation.

Other countries have recognized this danger and sought to address it.

NRC Adopts Open Access Self-Archiving Policy

Science Library Pad reports that Canada's National Research Council has adopted a policy making it mandatory to deposit copies of all peer-reviewed publications and technical reports in the NRC's forthcoming open access institutional repository. The policy will take effect in January 2009.