The Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner yesterday issued a noteworthy decision involving the ability of consumers to opt-out of secondary marketing that is included in monthly banking statements. Banks routinely pack the monthly statements with an assortment of marketing materials. When a customer asked to have the marketing materials […]
Latest Posts
Harry Potter and the Right to Read
My latest Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, freely available hyperlinked version) brings together two Canadian copyright stories from last week that demonstrate the damage that can occur when copyright law goes awry. The first is well known: the very disturbing Harry Potter court order which barred Canadians from reading […]
CBC for the Internet Age
I am a fan of the CBC. I think the radio programming is excellent and I like much of what their website offers. With respect to radio, I also think they have done a good job of making content available to Canadians through multiple channels (though unfortunately largely in proprietary […]
Unlawful Reading
Of all the responses to the Harry Potter injunction, I think the most disappointing came from the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association. It surprisingly characterized the injunction as a “very, very small issue” and suggested that “civil libertarians were not tied up in knots about it.” It should be noted […]
Canadian Ministers Respond to Copyright and Education Concerns
Industry Minister David Emerson and Canadian Heritage Minister Liza Frulla have taken the unusual step of posting an op-ed on the Canadian Heritage website to respond to mounting concerns that Bill C-60 will hamper the use of the Internet for educational and research purposes. The Ministers argue that the bill […]