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The Digital Road Leads Out of Rome

My weekly Law Bytes column (BBC version, homepage version) focuses on last week's OECD meeting on the future of the digital economy.  The column notes that the discussion pointed to two competing approaches for the distribution of content in the Internet era, one based on DRM and the other on […]

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February 8, 2006 Comments are Disabled Columns

French Court Dismisses P2P Case

Last week I noted that following the international standard on copyright is complicated, since there are many countries that are moving ahead or already have reforms that better serve the interests of users.  Things just got a bit more interesting as a French court has dismissed a lawsuit against an […]

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February 7, 2006 4 comments News

Two Perspectives on Copyright and Education

A pair of postings this morning provide an interesting, albeit discouraging, contrast between Canada and the United States on the role of the education community and copyright.  Howard Knopf highlights the dangers of "excess caution", pointing to Copyright Matters, a document produced by several Canadian education groups.  The document adopts […]

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February 7, 2006 1 comment News

Two-Tier Email

The NY Times reports that AOL and Yahoo! plan to implement a new email certification program that will ultimately force commercial emailers to pay a fraction of a cent per email to deliver their emails.  The program, discussed throughout the week in the trade press (here, here and here) envisions […]

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February 4, 2006 7 comments News

Be Careful What You Wish For

As I read reports tonight that France has advanced plans to legalize P2P, I was reminded that during the copyright reform process, groups such as CRIA are often heard to say that Canada needs to follow the lead of the rest of the world.  In light of recent events, I […]

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February 3, 2006 4 comments News