Another Canadian DMCA mashup hits the Internet, this one focusing on the lack of public consultation on Bill C-61.
Articles by: Michael Geist
U.S. Court Rules in Favor of Cablevision DVR
A U.S. federal appeals court yesterday overturned a lower court decision that Cablevision's plans to offer a network-based PVR violate U.S. copyright law. Bill C-61 explicitly prohibits the development of such a service in Canada.
MCPS-PRS Alliance and Big Champagne Assess the Radiohead Experiment
Eric Garland and Will Page of MCPS-PRS Alliance have published a brief study on the effects of Radiohead freely releasing its album. Garland notes in a media report that "the expectation among rights-holders is that, in order to create a success story, you must reduce the rate of piracy – […]
61 Reforms to C-61, Day 31: TPMs – Restrictions for Canadians with Perceptual Disabilities
Bill C-61 has the potential to impede access for all Canadians; however, one group may be particularly hard hit by widespread DRM use and the bill's anti-circumvention provisions. Those with print disabilities (called perceptual disabilities in the Copyright Act) rely on new voice technologies to gain access to works that they are physically unable to view. DRM can be used to limit or eliminate the use of technologies to read text aloud, thereby rendering it inaccessible for a segment of the population. Indeed, for those that think this is a mere fairy tale, one of the better known instances of "read aloud" restrictions involved the Adobe eReader, which restricted the reading aloud function for Alice in Wonderland.
The Copyright Act contains a specific provision to address access for the print disabled. Section 32(1) provides that:
cmaletter
CMA Letter.pdf
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