Columns

Canadian Libel Law Raises Net Free Speech Chill

My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, BBC international version, homepage version) places the spotlight on this week’s fundraiser in support of P2Pnet.net, a British Columbia-based website that is being sued for defamation for comments posted on the site by its readers. The importance of the Internet intermediary liabilty issue extends well beyond just Internet service providers – corporate websites that allow for user feedback, education websites featuring chatrooms, or even individual bloggers who permit comments face the prospect of demands to remove content that is alleged to violate the law.

The difficult question is not whether these sites and services have the right to voluntarily remove offending content if they so choose – no one doubts that they do – but rather whether sites can be compelled to remove allegedly unlawful or infringing content under threat of potential legal liability. The answer is not as straightforward as one might expect since Canadian law varies depending on the type of content or the nature of the allegations.

July 31, 2006 — 4 comments — Columns

The Canadian Long Tail

My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, homepage version), analyzes of the application of the Long Tail, now a popular book, to Canadian cultural industries including book publishing, music, and movies. From a Canadian perspective, the importance of the Long Tail should resonate strongly with businesses and policy makers […]

July 24, 2006 — 1 comment — Columns

The Mentos Video

My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, BBC version, homepage version) examines the enormous success of a video mixing Diet Coke and Mentos (which through a quirk of chemistry, sparks an immediate chemical reaction – a beverage geyser spurting several metres into the sky). Released for free on […]

July 17, 2006 — Comments are Disabled — Columns

Rethinking the Public in Public Broadcasting

My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) assesses potential reform of the CBC. Canadian stories are being told in record numbers, yet they are not found on the CBC. The blossoming of citizen journalism, blogging, digital photo-sharing, and user-generated content is reshaping the way the public is informed and entertained. Millions of Canadians are no longer merely consumers of the news and entertainment. Instead, they are active participants – one expert recently labeled them as "the people formerly known as the audience" – who create, report, comment, and analyze their own content that vies for the attention of a global audience.

The CBC’s future may therefore lie in further blurring the difference between conventional broadcast and the Internet by establishing an integrated approach that brings more broadcast content to the Internet and more Internet content to broadcast. The CBC has developed an impressive online presence, yet the majority of the content is based on the traditional broadcast model that places a premium on control. The next-generation CBC would do well to partner with the public by loosening restrictions and encouraging the dissemination of Canadian content from a broader range of sources.

Indeed, public broadcasters in other countries have already begun to reinvent themselves in this way.

July 10, 2006 — 6 comments — Columns

Bell Controversy Puts Spotlight on Net Surveillance

My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) focuses on last week’s controversy involving Bell Sympatico and a change to its user agreement. The Bell clause, which took effect on June 15th, advised subscribers that the company retains the right to "monitor or investigate content or your use of your service provider’s networks and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy any laws, regulations or other governmental request."

A widely circulated Canadian Press story (which featured several of my comments), noted that the Conservative government is expected to reintroduce lawful access legislation this fall and speculated that the change might have been in anticipation of that statutory reform. Many online pundits also chimed in, pointing to the battle over network neutrality in the United States, expressing fears that the Bell change might be designed to pave the way for a two-tier Internet in Canada under which ISPs levy fees on websites to deliver their content.

For its part, Bell swiftly issued a statement emphatically denying that the amendments were linked to lawful access, maintaining that the company had a "a long and established history of protecting the privacy of its customers."

The gist of the column is that regardless of the motivations for the change – whether harmless drafting amendments, lawful access, or network neutrality – the public and media reaction demonstrates how increased Internet surveillance is a political and business minefield that invariably stirs up vociferous opposition.

July 3, 2006 — 4 comments — Columns