Archive for November, 2015

Paywall Ruling Places Spotlight on Canada’s Digital Lock Problem

Appeared in the Toronto Star on November 8, 2015 as Paywalls and Punishment Does asking a friend for a copy of a newspaper article from a subscription website constitute copyright infringement? According to an Ottawa small claims court, it does. The court recently issued a deeply flawed copyright ruling, providing […]

Read more ›

November 10, 2015 1 comment Columns Archive
april: the booklist by stephanie vacher (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/4EgeGM

Official Release of TPP Text Confirms Massive Loss to Canadian Public Domain

The New Zealand government posted the official Trans Pacific Partnership text today after years secret negotiations and occasional leaks of the text. It is an enormous deal with dozens of side letters between countries – Canada alone has eight side letters on intellectual property with seven TPP countries – that will require considerable study.

From a copyright perspective, the TPP IP chapter leaked soon after the deal was concluded and the chapter looks largely consistent with that document. There is a notable change involving the Internet provider and host takedown rules, however. I earlier blogged that the chapter included a takedown provision not found in Canadian law that would have required blocking content based on being made aware of a court order finding infringement. I noted that the provision would have allowed decisions from other countries to effectively overrule Canadian law. The released text has been amended to limit the provision to domestic court rulings ensuring that only Canadian court rulings would apply. This is a positive change that better reflects current law. It does point to the danger of negotiating in secret, where potential concerns go unaddressed without the opportunity for expert review. Given the size of the deal, it seems likely that there will be many more instances of poorly drafted provisions that raise unintended consequences.

Read more ›

November 5, 2015 43 comments News

The Coming Battle over the Internet and Canadian Cultural Policy

Appeared in the Toronto Star on November 2, 2015 as Don’t Expect Liberals to Undo CRTC Reforms Canada’s cultural industries greeted the election of a new Liberal government with considerable excitement, hoping to the turn the page on a decade of Conservative policies that were widely viewed as prioritizing consumers […]

Read more ›

November 3, 2015 Comments are Disabled Columns Archive
Netflix - Generic Photo - Creative Commons by Matthew Keys (CC BY-ND 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/vsTUgA

Why a Battle over the Internet and Canadian Cultural Policy is Brewing

Canada’s cultural industries greeted the election of a new Liberal government with considerable excitement, hoping to the turn the page on a decade of Conservative policies that were widely viewed as prioritizing consumers over creators. The Liberal platform was silent on major regulatory changes, but it did promise to reverse cuts to the CBC and to increase allocations to the Canada Council for the Arts, Telefilm, and the National Film Board.

The cultural sector will undoubtedly welcome the infusion of millions more in taxpayer support, but the bigger fight will be over legal reforms to treat telecom and Internet companies as cultural businesses and require them to make Canadian content contributions similar to those paid by conventional broadcasters.

My weekly technology law column (homepage version) notes that the prospect of telecom and Internet provider payments has been part of a long-standing campaign from cultural groups who fear that a shrinking broadcast sector will ultimately mean smaller handouts for Canadian content creation. The campaign has thus far failed to bear much fruit: the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 2012 that Internet providers were not subject to the Broadcasting Act and last year the Conservatives led the charge against a “Netflix tax” that would have required the popular online video service to make Canadian content contributions.

Read more ›

November 3, 2015 4 comments Columns