Columns

Cellphone Spectrum Set-Aside Simply Step One

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, Ottawa Citizen version, homepage version) focuses on the recent government spectrum allocation announcement. I argue that new wireless competition will be welcome news to consumers, however, it represents only part of the solution. The day before the Prentice press conference, U.S.-based Verizon Wireless shocked the industry by announcing that next year it will adopt an "open network" approach that will remove the restrictive walled garden that typifies the incumbent carriers. Instead, its customers will be permitted to use any device and any application that meets minimum technical standards. The Verizon decision comes just weeks after Google introduced a partnership with leading U.S. carriers such as Sprint and T-Mobile to create the Open Handset Alliance, which will similarly enable consumers to use devices that are fully open to new innovation and third-party programs.

This rush toward an open cellphone market stands in sharp contrast to years of restricted networks that left decisions about new devices and functionality strictly in the hands of a few dominant cellphone providers.

December 5, 2007 — 1 comment — Columns

Private Email Not Always Hush Hush

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, The Tyee version, Ottawa Citizen version, homepage version) begins by recounting that this past September, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency launched "Operation Raw Deal", an initiative that targeted people purchasing raw steroid materials through the Internet from China and repackaging the steroids as drugs for domestic sale. Tyler Strumbo, a 23-year old California resident, was among the 124 people arrested. The Strumbo case is of particular interest because of an important Canadian connection. The foundation of the DEA's case rested on hundreds of encrypted emails stored on the computer servers of Hush Communications, a company based in Vancouver. A British Columbia court ordered the company to decrypt the emails and to send them to the U.S. law enforcement officials. Faced with a valid court order, the company complied, shipping 12 CDs filled with unencrypted personal email to investigators in California.

November 27, 2007 — 6 comments — Columns

All I Want For Christmas is a Legal TiVo

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, The Tyee version, Ottawa Citizen version, homepage version) focuses on the fact that there is nothing under Canadian law that clearly permits home recording of television programs. I note that TiVo claims that its service is available in Canada, yet few retailers carry the product. In fact, notwithstanding the growing popularity of PVRs and the ubiquity of VCRs – the CRTC estimates that 700,000 Canadian households own a PVR and Statistics Canada reports that over 10 million households have video cassette recorders (VCR) – the absence of the TiVo is not the only difference between the U.S. and Canadian markets. In the U.S., using TiVos and VCRs is clearly legal. In Canada, it is not.

While it may come as news to many Canadians that they infringe copyright on daily basis, those involved in the industry are well aware of this state of the law. The law includes a series of copying exceptions that cover research, private study, and criticism, however, there is nothing that clearly permits home recording of television programs. Indeed, the delayed introduction of the TiVo or the Slingbox, another popular product that allows consumers to transfer their television programs over the Internet to their computer and which only entered the Canadian market last year, may stem in part from fears about the legal climate.

Ottawa has regularly introduced legislation demanded by lobby groups (new laws against camcording in movie theatres and Internet rebroadcasting have been passed over the past five years), yet nothing has been done to address the legality of commonplace, non-commercial activities that affects millions of Canadians.

November 21, 2007 — 11 comments — Columns

Canada’s Digital Info Strategy Stuck in an Analog World

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, Ottawa Citizen version, homepage version) focuses on the Library and Archives Canada's (LAC) recently released draft Canadian Digital Information Strategy that may provide some momentum behind digitization plans in Canada. In today's technological world, most content is "born digital," yet there remains a rich history of books, music, film, photos, and other works in analog form. Since people increasingly have access solely to digital content, policy makers must confront the challenge of how to bring all of our culture and historical knowledge into the digital realm.

The strategy makes for sobering reading – Canada may have once been a world-leader in Internet access, yet today it finds itself years behind other countries in developing a clearly focused strategy to link digital access with digital information. Most of our major trading partners, including the United States, European Union, Australia, New Zealand, and China have already established digitization strategies that feature robust programs and ambitious plans. Moreover, some of those countries have benefited from private sector digitization initiatives led by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and the Internet Archive. Those countries recognized that an effective digitization strategy yields significant domestic benefits such as wider access to knowledge for all communities, a greater appreciation of national cultural heritage, and the facilitation of lifelong learning. There are tangible international advantages as well, since digital access supports cultural exports and collaborative scientific research.

In order to close the ever-widening gap, the strategy focuses on strengthening Canadian digital content creation, preserving older content, as well as maximizing access and use. The three-pronged strategy hits many of the right buttons by emphasizing the need to support the creation of digital content (many government funding programs are still stuck in the analog era), highlighting the value in identifying the priority works in need of digitization, and fostering a framework that emphasizes access.

Yet despite its laudable goals, the draft strategy suffers from timidity.

November 13, 2007 — Comments are Disabled — Columns

Politics Trumps Policy as Copyright Bill Approaches

The Hill Times features a special op-ed this week (HT version (sub required), homepage version) that I wrote on the recent Statistics Canada and Industry Canada studies on the music industry. With independent data now confirming that the Canadian music industry is enjoying healthy profits and that Internet file sharing […]

November 12, 2007 — 3 comments — Columns