Latest Posts

No Excuse to Delay Number Portability

My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, freely available version) focuses on the CRTC’s wireless number portability consultation.  I argue that while the industry regularly touts the Canadian wireless environment as a highly competitive, world-class market, the truth is that Canada trails badly on the number portability issue.  The […]

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October 9, 2005 5 comments Columns

Australia’s High Court Delivers Some Copyright Lessons for Canada

The Australian High Court today delivered a landmark copyright decision involving "mod chips" and Sony PlayStations.  The case goes to the heart of anti-circumvention provisions that create very contentious proposals in Bill C-60 here in Canada.  At issue in the Australian case was whether mod-chips, used to modify the Sony […]

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October 6, 2005 5 comments News

IFPI Reports Canadian Music Sales Up in 2005

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the global recording industry association, has just released its mid-term report for 2005.  In addition to the continuing success of the fee-based music download services, the report indicates that Canadian sales are up in 2005.  While the increase is not enormous at […]

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October 3, 2005 3 comments News

Coming Clean on Copyright

My regular Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, freely available version) notes that with House of Commons now back to business, a parliamentary committee will be formed in the coming weeks to conduct hearings on Bill C-60.  While much of the public' s attention in recent days has focused on […]

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October 2, 2005 Comments are Disabled Columns

The Onion, CRIA Edition

While we were participating in a great launch of In the Public Interest, CRIA was across town promoting two new surveys that seek to link seemingly all teenager problems and recording industry woes with file sharing.  It is tempting to conduct a detailed analysis on how off-base these two new […]

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September 30, 2005 4 comments News