Michael Geist

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Alberta Man Sentenced to Jail for Hate Site

In what is being described as a groundbreaking case, an Alberta man has been sentenced to 16 months in jail for promoting hatred on his website.

September 2, 2006 — Comments are Disabled — News

30 Days of DRM – Day 15: Artistic Access (Circumvention Rights)

The copyright lobby frequently characterizes the use of DRM and anti-circumvention legislation as benefiting creators. Contrary to the rhetoric, however, a growing number of creators actively oppose DRM and the prospect of anti-circumvention legislation. The Canadian Music Creators Coalition justifiably generated enormous attention last spring when dozens of Canada's leading musicians came together to form a new coalition opposed to suing fans, using DRM, or establishing anti-circumvention legislation. The Appropriation Art coalition, launched soon afterward, may have less noteriety but they combine to form a powerful voice. Consisting of more than 600 artists, curators, directors, educators, writers, associations and organizations from the art sector, the coalition features artists that have collectively won dozens of major awards including eight Governor General Awards in Visual and Media Arts.

Despite these credentials, the group incredibly received little more than a form letter from Bev Oda, the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Perhaps that is because the Appropriation Arts coalition tells a much different story from the copyright lobby.

September 2, 2006 — 2 comments — News

30 Days of DRM – Day 14: Private Copying (Circumvention Rights)

Several postings have noted that Bill C-60, the last failed attempt at copyright reform, sought to link anti-circumvention with copyright infringement by only making it an infringement to circumvent for the purposes of copyright infringement (thereby preserving user rights such as fair dealing). There was a notable exception, however – private copying. By excluding private copying, the bill made it an offence to circumvent a TPM (such as a copy-control on a CD) even if the purpose of the circumvention was to make a private copy. The rationale behind the exclusion was that the private copying system is designed to be compensatory, with the rate reflecting the amount of copying that is actually occurring in the marketplace. Supporters of the private copying exclusion argue that if copy-controls become pervasive, the amount of private copying will decline and so will the private copying levy.

This is pure fiction.

September 1, 2006 — 1 comment — News

Privacy Commissioner Expresses Concern Over Lawful Access

Federal Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart is expressing concern over potential lawful access legislation, stating that "as privacy commissioner, I want to have a lot of questions answered about why this is necessary because, up to now, I haven't been convinced."

September 1, 2006 — 1 comment — News

The Private Copying Survey

The Canadian Private Copying Collective is out with an Environics survey it commissioned on Canadians' attitudes toward the private copying levy. While I give full marks to the CPCC for releasing the survey results in full (presumably it would have been made available as part of their submission to the Copyright Board anyway), it is time to declare a moratorium on the use of polls as policymaking. As I have noted before, CRIA's regular Pollara polls are rendered useless by virtue of the omission of key questions, inconsistent results, and the lack of public awareness on the issues.

This CPCC study falls into the same category.

August 31, 2006 — 5 comments — News