News

Londres - Omnibus by Aurélie (CC BY-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/dH9VMQ

About That Copyright Exception for Political Advertising. . .Never Mind

Earlier this month, a political storm hit in Canada when it was revealed that the government was considering including a new copyright exception for political advertising in its forthcoming omnibus budget bill. The reports sparked claims of fascism, censorship, expropriation, and more, yet as I argued, the commentary bore almost no relationship to reality. There were legitimate concerns about an exception made solely available to politicians and political parties as well as doubts about the need for such an exception given the breadth of the current fair dealing exception that already permits most uses of video clips.

Yesterday, the government tabled its omnibus budget bill, which contains changes to the Patent Act (to bring Canada into compliance with the Patent Law Treaty), effectively ban paper billing charges for telecom and broadcast services, and grant new enforcement powers to the CRTC. As for the copyright reform provision, perhaps the public outcry had an impact. It is nowhere to be found.

October 24, 2014 — Comments are Disabled — News

Access & Privacy Conference 2013 by forester401 (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/eLS9xR

The Expansion of Personal Information Disclosure Without Consent: Unpacking the Government’s Weak Response to Digital Privacy Act Concerns

Bill S-4, the government’s Digital Privacy Act, was sent for review to the Industry Committee yesterday. The committee review, which comes before second reading, represents what is likely to be the last opportunity to fix a bill that was supposed to be a good news story for the government but has caused serious concern within the Canadian privacy community. While there are several concerns (I raised them in my appearance before the Senate committee that first studied the bill), the chief one involves the potential expansion of voluntary disclosure of personal information without consent or court oversight. Bill S-4 proposes that:

“an organization may disclose personal information without the knowledge or consent of the individual… if the disclosure is made to another organization and is reasonable for the purposes of investigating a breach of an agreement or a contravention of the laws of Canada or a province that has been, is being or is about to be committed and it is reasonable to expect that disclosure with the knowledge or consent of the individual would compromise the investigation;

Translate the legalese and you find that organizations will be permitted to disclose personal information without consent (and without a court order) to any organization that is investigating a contractual breach or possible violation of any law. This applies both past breaches or violations as well as potential future violations. Moreover, the disclosure occurs in secret without the knowledge of the affected person (who therefore cannot challenge the disclosure since they are not aware it is happening).

The government is clearly aware that this is a major concern as it attempted to answer the critics during debate over Bill S-4 in the House of Commons yesterday. Unfortunately, the responses were incredibly weak. I’ve identified at least six responses from government sources below.

October 21, 2014 — 3 comments — News

TPP opposition chart By Julian Assange and Sarah Harrison https://wikileaks.org/tpp-ip2/attack-on-affordable-cancer-treatments.html

New TPP Leak: Canada Emerges as Leading Opponent of U.S. Intellectual Property Demands

This morning Wikileaks released an updated leaked version of the draft Trans Pacific Partnership intellectual property chapter. The latest leak dates from May 2014 (the previous leak was current to August 2013. I assessed it in posts here, here, here, here and here). The 77-page document provides a detailed look at the proposed chapter, complete with country positions on each issue. While a comprehensive assessment of the chapter will take some time, the immediate takeaway is that the U.S. remains fairly isolated in its efforts to overhaul patent and copyright law around the world with Canada emerging as the leading opponent of its demands.

October 16, 2014 — 25 comments — News

System Security Breach by Jeff Keyzer (CC BY-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/bucTzM

Government Opens Door to Major Changes to Digital Privacy Bill

While it was overshadowed by the headlines over potential copyright reform, Peter Van Loan, the government’s House leader, disclosed last week that the government is planning to send Bill S-4, the Digital Privacy Act, to the Industry Committee for review prior to second reading. The bill, which has proven controversial due to a provision that expands the possibility of voluntary disclosure of subscriber information and relatively weak security breach disclosure rules, will be open to more significant reforms that previously thought possible (my remarks before the Senate committee can be found here). Under Parliamentary rules, referring a bill before second reading allows the committee to alter the scope of the bill.

October 15, 2014 — 5 comments — News

New Copyright Exception for Political Advertising, Presentation by Minister of Canadian Heritage

The Government’s Political Advertising Copyright Exception: Fine Print Shows Proposal Privileges Politicians’ Speech Rights Over the Public

Last night I posted on reports that the Canadian government is considering a new copyright exception for political advertising. While many have been harshly critical of the plans, I’ve noted that political speech is critically important and that copyright law should not be used to stifle it. My post argues that the law may already cover some of the uses and that if changes are needed, a better approach would be to adopt a fair use provision in Canada.

I have now obtained a copy of the document that was presented by the Minister of Canadian Heritage. The document is obviously consistent with the media reports, but provides significantly more detail and raises several additional questions and concerns.

October 9, 2014 — 10 comments — News