Columns

Digital Strategy Consultation’s Unasked Questions: Who Leads? Who Pays?

Last week Industry Minister Tony Clement unveiled the government’s much-anticipated Digital Economy Strategy consultation. My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes the consultation is slated to run for two months and includes an online forum, face-to-face meetings, and a 40-page document that sets out key areas of concern. Five areas for discussion are identified: capacity to innovate, building a world-class digital infrastructure, growing the ICT industry, creating digital content, and building digital skills.

Skeptics will argue that the consultation is long overdue or perhaps even comes too late. Canada has inarguably lost considerable ground in comparison with many other countries around the world that were quicker to identify and implement digital strategies. While the delays have been marked by a gradual hollowing-out of the Canadian tech sector and sliding global rankings on network and wireless connectivity, Clement has firmly established himself as the most committed Industry Minister on digital issues since John Manley in the late 1990s.

Prioritizing digital issues is a first step toward remedying the situation, but a decade worth of policy neglect will not be solved overnight. Despite lingering doubts about whether the government is listening – many Canadians fear that last summer’s copyright consultation may be largely ignored – those concerned with Canada’s digital future can ill-afford to stay silent on the sidelines. I hope to address some of the substantive questions raised by the consultation in a future column, but the more immediate concern are two unasked questions that cut across all issues – who will lead the strategy and how will the government pay for it.

May 17, 2010 — 11 comments — Columns

Piracy Haven Label Case of Rhetoric Over Reality

In the wake of recent reports exposing the activities of former MP Rahim Jaffer, lobbying has been the talk of Ottawa for the past month. The incident has had an immediate impact on lobbying regulations, with the Conservatives and Liberals jostling over who can introduce tougher disclosure measures. The changes may plug a few loopholes, yet the reality is that lobbying efforts are not always the subject of secretive meetings with high-level officials.

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) considers the intensive lobbying effort on promised intellectual property reform. In recent weeks, those efforts have escalated dramatically, with most activities taking place in plain view. Scarcely a week goes by without a major event occurring – last week it was a reception sponsored by the Canadian Private Copying Collective, the week before an event hosted by the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, and the week before that the Juno Awards attended by several cabinet ministers and MPs.

Even more open is the public campaign designed to persuade Canadians that their country is a piracy haven. Late last month, the IFPI, which represents the global recording industry, released its annual Recording Industry in Numbers report that tracks global record sales. The report targeted two countries – Canada and Spain – for declining sales and linked those declines to copyright law. Not coincidentally, both countries are currently working on legal reforms.

May 10, 2010 — 7 comments — Columns

ACTA: Why You Should Still Care

This post appears as a guest column on GigaOm today:

After years of secrecy, the eighth round of talks aimed at drafting an international treaty called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) recently concluded in New Zealand – and in the face of public pressure, a version of the text was subsequently made available to the public. The ACTA is neither a trade agreement nor one focused primarily on counterfeiting, but a copyright deal featuring provisions on Internet service provider and Internet company liability, DMCA-style notice and takedown requirements, legal protection for digital locks, and requirements for statutory damages that could result in millions in liability for non-commercial infringement – even heightened searches at border crossings.

Ever since the ACTA partners – among them the U.S., E.U., Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Morocco and Singapore – announced negotiations plans in October 2007, ACTA has been dogged by controversy over a near-total lack of transparency. Early talks were held in secret locations with each participating country offering virtually identical, cryptic press releases that did little more than fuel public concern. Now that the ACTA text is public, some might wonder whether there’s still cause for concern. Indeed, given widespread support for measures that target genuine commercial counterfeiting, some might believe it’s time to actively support ACTA.

It’s not – at least not this version.

May 3, 2010 — 11 comments — Columns

Privacy Takes Step Towards Global Enforcement

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that last week the talk of the privacy world was news that 10 privacy and data protection commissioners – led by Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart – had released a public letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, expressing concern that the Internet giant was forgetting its privacy responsibilities.

The letter, also signed by the heads of privacy agencies from France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and the United Kingdom, focused on the recent introduction of Google Buzz, a service that offered new social media capabilities. It attracted the wrath of users and privacy advocates after Google automatically assigned users a network of "followers" from among people with whom they corresponded most often on Gmail. Google quickly altered the offending features, but the damage was clearly done, as privacy commissioners from around the world used the incident as the basis for a shot across the company’s bow.

April 29, 2010 — 2 comments — Columns

Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore: The iPadLock Minister?

Since his appointment as Canadian Heritage minister in 2008, James Moore has carefully crafted an image as "Canada's iPod Minister." Young, bilingual, and tech-savvy, Moore has expressed regular support for the benefits of the Internet and is always ready with a quick "tweet" for his many followers. Yet as my op-ed in the Hill Times notes (HT version (sub required), homepage version), according to the scuttlebutt throughout the copyright community, Moore may be less iPod and more iPadlock. As the government readies its much-anticipated copyright package, Moore is said to be pressing for a virtual repeat of Bill C-61, the most anti-consumer copyright proposal in Canadian history.

Moore's about-face on copyright will come as a surprise to those who have heard his enthusiasm for new technology and the Internet. In June 2009, Moore told Industry Minister Tony Clement's Digital Economy conference that "the old way of doing things is over. These things are all now one. And it's great. And it's never been better. And we need to be enthusiastic and embrace this things."

Those comments were quickly followed by the national copyright consultation that generated thousands of responses, the majority of which called on the government to abandon the C-61 approach in favour of copyright rules that struck a better balance between the interests of creators and consumers.

April 26, 2010 — 64 comments — Columns