The House of Commons has been debating Bill C-4, the implementation bill for the US-Canada-Mexico (USMCA) Trade Agreement. The copyright term extension has begun to attract attention. Green MP Paul Manly called it an “unnecessary change” and Conservative MP Dan Albas, who participated in the copyright review, used his time to make a strong case against extension. Albas’ comments are a must-read as he warns of the danger of term extension, welcomes the chance to mitigate the harm, and encourages the government to use the copyright review as its road map for the issue:
News
Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault on Regulating Foreign News Sites: “What’s the Big Deal?”
In June 2017, the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage committee recommended implementing tax on Internet services in a report on media. Within minutes, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was asked about the proposal at a press conference in Montreal. Trudeau’s answer – which literally came as committee chair Hedy Fry was holding a press conference on the report – was unequivocal: No. The government was not going to raise costs of Internet services with an ISP tax. The committee recommendation was minutes old and the government wasted absolutely no time in killing the proposal.
The CRTC Knows Best: Panel Report Recommends Costly Overhaul of Canadian Communications Law to Regulate Internet Sites and Services Worldwide
The Broadcast and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel released its much anticipated report yesterday with a vision of a highly regulated Internet in which an expanded CRTC (or a renamed Canadian Communications Commission) would aggressively assert its jurisdictional power over Internet sites and services worldwide with the power to levy massive penalties for failure to comply with its regulatory edicts. The recommendations should be rejected by Innovation, Science and Industry Minister Navdeep Bains and Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault as both unnecessary to support a thriving cultural sector and inconsistent with a government committed to innovation and freedom of expression.
The Canadian Digital Law Decade: The Ten Most Notable Cases, Laws, and Policy Developments
As the decade nears an end, there have been no shortage of decade in review pieces. This post adds to the list with my take on the most notable Canadian digital cases, legislative initiatives, and policies of the past ten years.
1. The 2012 Copyright Modernization Act
The enactment of the 2012 Copyright Modernization Act in June 2012 brought more than a decade of copyright reform battles to a close and immediately ushered in a new round of debate and lobbying that continues until this day. The reform package was the largest copyright overhaul in years, featuring everything from an expansion of fair dealing (including education as a fair dealing purpose) to protection for non-commercial user generated content to the codification of the notice-and-notice system to legal protection for digital locks. The reforms also legalized longstanding practices such as time shifting, set a cap on liability for non-commercial infringement, and established a new provision to target websites that enable infringement.
Netflix Data Suggests Streaming Giant Spending One-Third of Canadian Revenues on Film and TV Production in Canada
Earlier this week, Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault tweeted that he plans to work with Innovation, Science and Industry Minister Navdeep Bains to amend Canadian law to ensure web giants offer more Canadian content, contribute to its creation, promote it, and make it easier to find. The tweet was consistent with the government’s platform and mandate letters that have been pointing to increased Netflix regulation for many months. While there is much to be said about the specifics of each of these regulatory issues – the wisdom of government regulating the Netflix recommendation algorithm, the false “level playing field” arguments, the impact on the company’s 6.5 million Canadian customers among them – it is important to go back to how this debate started with the claims that only regulation would ensure support for film and television production in Canada.
Recent Posts
“Big Brother Tactics”: Why Bill C-2’s New Warrantless Disclosure Demand Powers Extend Far Beyond Internet and Telecom Providers 
Government Seeks To Exempt Political Parties From Privacy Laws Even As CRTC Reports They Are Leading Source of Spam Complaints 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 236: Robert Diab on the Return of Lawful Access 
Government Remains Silent as it Eviscerates Political Party Privacy in Canada By Fast Tracking Bill C-4 
Quebec’s Streaming Regulation Bill 109: Unconstitutional, Unnecessary, and Unworkable
