The Hill Times runs a special op-ed (HT version, homepage version) in which I note that while the influence of the U.S. government in crafting a Canadian version of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act has been a recurring theme, what has gone largely unnoticed is the role that some Canadian lobby groups have played in quietly encouraging the U.S. to step up the pressure. Indeed, according to documents recently obtained under the Access to Information Act, last spring Canadian Recording Industry Association President Graham Henderson met with Wilkins' counterpart – Canada's Ambassador to the United States Michael Wilson – to encourage him to pressure both governments to prioritize U.S. style copyright reforms.
Columns
ISPs Face New Role in Network Control
My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, Ottawa Citizen version, BBC version, homepage version) focuses on the failure of the DRM, content-locking strategy and the move toward locking down the Internet. I note that this approach envisions requiring Internet service providers to install filtering and content monitoring technologies within their networks. ISPs would then become private network police, actively monitoring for content that might infringe copyright and stopping it from reaching subscribers' computers.
The support for locking down the Internet revives an old debate – the appropriate role and responsibility of ISPs for the activities that take place on their networks.
Two Copyright Columns To Start the Week
I have two copyright-related columns out this morning. The first, Fair Copyright Provides Prentice With Reform Roadmap, appears in the Hill Times (HT version, homepage version). The column raises the same fair copyright proposals that I posted last week. The second, Copyright Reform a Potential Threat to Privacy, is my […]
Why Is There No Canadian MIT?
My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) highlights the remarkable accomplishments on the MIT Open Courseware initiative, which today features nearly every course offered by the Institute – about 1800 in all. More than 90 percent of MIT's faculty voluntarily participates in the program, offering not only their course materials, but also hundreds of audio and video podcasts. The courses are published under open licences that encourage users to reuse, redistribute, and modify the materials for noncommercial purposes. The user base includes educators planning their own courses, students using the MIT materials to complement courses at their own institutions, and millions of self-learners who use the materials to enhance their personal knowledge.
What started with just MIT has grown into a consortium of dozens of universities from around the world that has published 5,000 courses in many different languages. China leads the way with 30 universities. In all, 160 universities and colleges from 20 countries, including Japan, Colombia, Vietnam, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia, have committed to publish at least ten courses in open courseware format so that the materials are freely available on a non-commercial basis. I argue that the Open Courseware initiative is an exciting story of the potential of the Internet, of universities fulfilling their missions as educational leaders, and of the desire of educators around the globe to share their knowledge.
Yet it is also a story in which Canada is largely absent.
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