Articles by: Michael Geist

C-47 Undermines Olympic Spirit

My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) focuses on Bill C-47, the Olympic and Paralympic Marks Act, which I think is better characterized as the Olympic Corporate Sponsor Protection Act. The column synthesizes my comments from two earlier postings on the bill (here and here), namely that […]

March 19, 2007 — 2 comments — Columns

Special Interest Law Undermines the Olympic Spirit

Appeared in the Toronto Star on March 19, 2007 as Bill C-47 Not in the Spirit of Olympics The 2010 Vancouver-Whistler Winter Olympics are still three years away, however over the next few weeks the Games will take centre stage in the House of Commons. Earlier this month, the Government […]

March 19, 2007 — Comments are Disabled — Columns Archive

National Digitization Strategy Enters New Phase

Building on last December's national digitization summit, the Library and Archives Canada has pulled together a Strategy Development Committee and a Strategy Review Panel (I sit on the review panel). Details on the effort here.

March 19, 2007 — 1 comment — News

Deutsche Telekom’s Music Service Comes Out Against DRM

Ars Technica reports Deutsche Telekom's Musicload, one of the largest online music stores in Europe, has come out strongly against DRM.

March 19, 2007 — Comments are Disabled — News

Copyright Board Issues Online Music Decision

The Copyright Board of Canada this afternoon issued its much-anticipated decision involving online music services. The decision sets a tariff for the online music services to be paid for the reproduction of music. I blogged about the hearings in the fall, which pitted the CMRRA against CRIA and the online music services.

The Copyright Board was asked to choose between two benchmarks in establishing the tariff. CMRRA wanted to use the recent ringtone decision as the starting point, while CRIA argued that traditional CDs served as the more appropriate starting point. The Board sided with CRIA, ultimately arriving at a tariff of 7.9 percent of the retail price per "permanent" download (ie. a download from Apple iTunes) with a minimum payment of 5.3 cents per download. Note that CRIA also sought to become a sub-licensee of the CMRRA repertiore, but the Board rejected that request.

The decision also includes some important language with respect to private copying and DRM.

March 16, 2007 — 18 comments — News