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Industry and Heritage

Question period in the House of Commons today, the last of the session, featured the following exchange:

"Ms. Bev Oda (Durham, CPC): Mr. Speaker, Canada has a world class Internet infrastructure in our schools but the heritage minister's new copyright legislation makes it restrictive, onerous and possibly more costly for schools, teachers and students to download on-line educational material.

This legislation will make routine classroom activities illegal. Why do the government and the minister want to make our students and teachers pay more for materials they are using now or make them criminals under a new copyright law?

Hon. Liza Frulla (Minister of Canadian Heritage and Minister responsible for Status of Women, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the hon. opposition member knows very well that we promised to table the copyright law in June, which we did. We also said that as far as the education matter is concerned, we will study it and focus on it solely after second reading of the bill. We will study the education matter because it does not have consensus.

I also want to say to my hon. critic that children can be in school but once they become researchers and authors, they also to have their copyrights reserved and paid for."

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June 29, 2005 Comments are Disabled News

Canada-U.S.-Mexico Plan Raises IP, Spam and Privacy Issues

The Canadian, U.S., and Mexican government quietly released their Security and Prosperity Partnership for North America today. While the documents contain the usual high level commitments, several elements are worth watching from an technology and privacy law perspective.

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June 28, 2005 Comments are Disabled News

Canadian Pay Radio Decision Appealed

As expected, a group of associations have filed a letter requesting that the federal government set aside or refer back to the CRTC the recent pay radio decision. The groups launching the appeal include ACTRA, the Canadian Independent Record Production Association, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, the Directors Guild of Canada, the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, the National Campus and Community Radio Association, SOCAN, the Songwriters Association of Canada, and the Writers Guild of Canada.

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June 27, 2005 Comments are Disabled News

Grokster and the Future of P2P

As many readers will have heard, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Grokster earlier today (Souter opinion, Ginsburg concurrence, Breyer concurrence).

I'm participating in a discussion of the decision at the Wall Street Journal online (free access for roundtable). My initial take and posting is:

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June 27, 2005 Comments are Disabled News

Bill C-60 A Missed Opportunity

My regular Law Bytes column (freely available hyperlinked version, Toronto Star version, homepage version) examines Bill C-60, Canada's new copyright reform bill. I argue that the bill represents a missed opportunity.

While some of provisions strike an admirable balance, those that are ostensibly designed to facilitate technology-based education and the digital delivery of library materials fall far short of their goal by hobbling any new rights with suffocating restrictions that render the provisions practically useless.

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June 27, 2005 Comments are Disabled Columns