Appeared in the Toronto Star on February 28, 2016 as Apple iPhone Unlock Standoff Rotten to the Core The U.S. government’s attempt to invoke a centuries-old law to obtain a court order to require Apple to create a program that would allow it to break the security safeguards on the […]
Articles by: Michael Geist
The Trouble With the TPP, Day 40: Mobile Roaming Promises Unfulfilled
The Trouble with the TPP series has identified several instances where promises about deal’s benefits for consumers prove to be largely illusory upon closer examination of the actual text. These include weak privacy protections, anti-spam standards, and e-commerce rules. The same over-promise and under-deliver TPP approach arises with respect to consumer mobile roaming. The TPP contains a large telecom chapter, which some governments used to promote as a key pro-consumer feature of the agreement. For example, the Australian government claimed:
Australia has successfully advocated for a provision that addresses, for the first time, the high cost of International Mobile Roaming.
The Canadian government used similar language in its TPP summary, stating that the TPP “includes, for the first time in a trade agreement, a dedicated article addressing the high cost of international mobile roaming.”
Quebec Court Dismisses Copibec Copyright Class Action Against Laval University
The recent Copyright Board ruling involving Access Copyright and copying at K-12 schools affirmed the fairness of educational copying practices across Canada. While writers groups continue to mislead with claims that the board’s decision springs from 2012 legislative reforms, the reality is that the current approach is grounded in several Supreme Court of Canada decisions. Writers groups and Access Copyright have repeatedly sought to downplay those decisions, yet it has been obvious to most observers that there is nothing unfair about copying up to 10% of a work for purposes such as research, private study, criticism, and education.
With repeated losses at the Copyright Board and the Supreme Court of Canada, copyright collectives have adopted another legal strategy: lawsuits and class actions against universities. The Access Copyright lawsuit against York University is ongoing, but the Quebec counterpart – an attempted class action filed by Copibec against Laval University in November 2014 – hit a legal wall last week. Copibec had been seeking millions in compensation after Laval shifted to an approach based on fair dealing and transactional licenses. According to a release from Copibec, the court refused to authorize the class action. Copibec says it plans to appeal, but the decision suggests that the legal alternatives for the copyright collectives is rapidly diminishing.
The Trouble With the TPP, Day 39: Quiet Expansion of Criminal Copyright Provisions
The past two Trouble with the TPP posts have focused on the disconnect between the TPP and Canadian copyright law which raises the possibility that the Canadian digital lock rules may not be consistent with the TPP. In addition to those concerns, the Electronic Frontier Foundation recently identified a subtle change that was added during the “legal scrub”. The change involved a provision on applying criminal procedures and penalties in cases of willful copyright infringement on a commercial scale. The version released in November stated:
OMDC Response Confirms Minister Coteau’s Music Fund Claims Inaccurate
My column/post this week on the Ontario Music Fund’s lack of transparency and exaggerated impact has elicited numerous private responses from people frustrated by the program (some public too) as well as some comments from the Ontario Media Development Corporation. Speaking to FYI Music, OMDC unsurprisingly defend the program and its results. However, the comments appear to confirm that claims about the impact of the program by Michael Coteau, the Minister of Tourism, Culture, and Sport, were inaccurate.
Coteau spoke to Karen Bliss, Billboard’s Canadian correspondent, in April 2015 about the Ontario Music Fund. As part of the interview, Coteau was asked about auditing or vetting where the money was spent:
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