Articles by: Michael Geist

The Liberal Letter on C-61

Earlier this week, I posted a letter from NDP leader Jack Layton that is sharply critical of Bill C-61. The language used in the letter is apparently being used by other NDP MPs. The same appears to be true for Liberal MPs. Several people have sent me copies with only […]

June 22, 2008 — 20 comments — News

Letters to the Editor

Several noteworthy letters to the editor on Saturday – a terrific one from Steven Comeau, the President of Collideascope Digital and a Gemeni Award-winning producer in the Vancouver Sun, as well as a rebuttal to Corcoran's National Post piece by David Skoll, the President of Roaring Penguin Software in Ottawa. […]

June 22, 2008 — 2 comments — News

Bow’s Open Letter to Prentice

A great open letter to Industry Minister Jim Prentice from author James Bow.

June 22, 2008 — Comments are Disabled — News

A Week in the Life of the Canadian DMCA: Part Five

The week in the life of the Canadian DMCA concludes (day one, day two, day three, day four) with Stephen.

Stephen is a big music fan. Tonight, he is going with his girlfriend to see his favourite band in concert. He has purchased every CD issued by the band. To get ready for concert, he downloads a live version of one of his favourite songs that was released commercially in Europe (it is not available in Canada) that he finds on a file-sharing network. The song is downloaded to an external hard drive that he uses to store his music. While on the network, one hundred songs on the hard drive were available in his shared folder for others to download, though none were. At his girlfriend’s request, he also copies three of the band's best songs onto a CD to play during the drive to the concert. He gives the CD to his girlfriend as a gift.

If Industry Minister Jim Prentice’s Bill C-61 becomes law, all of these copying activity – with one exception – would arguably violate the law.

June 20, 2008 — 37 comments — News