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Ontario Court of Appeal Hears Bangoura Appeal

The Ontario Court of Appeal heard arguments yesterday in an appeal of the Bangoura v. Washington Post decision. The case raises significant Internet jurisdiction issues, citing leading cases such as Gutnick. The decision has attracted considerable global attention, with dozens of major media companies intervening in support of the Post. I appeared on CBC's As It Happens to discuss the case (and I wrote about the trial decision when it was first released last year).

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March 9, 2005 Comments are Disabled News

Speaking Out

Today's article on the government plans for lawful access, extended licensing, etc. has been /.ed leading to lots of email from people wanting to do something.
The most obvious place to start is to write to our politicians — they need to hear from people that are concerned about these proposed privacy and copyright reforms.

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March 7, 2005 Comments are Disabled News

What Do You Want the Internet To Be?

My weekly Law Bytes column (homepage version) highlights several potential Canadian policies that may create a very different Internet. They include ubiquitous network surveillance through the lawful access initiative, ISPs that engage in packet preferencing as in the two cases last week involving Vonage and Telkom Kenya, a new extended license that would require schools to pay millions of dollars for content that is currently freely available on the Internet, and rules that make it far easier to remove an allegedly infringing song than to remove dangerous child pornography. It concludes by riffing on an old Nortel ad campaign by asking whether this is really what we want the Internet to be?

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March 7, 2005 Comments are Disabled Columns

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Today's National Post Magazine carries a feature (subscription required) on Canadian Recording Industry Association President Graham Henderson. I'm quoted as saying that Henderson is a smart, tenacious guy but that CRIA doesn't represent the views of the entire industry nor of the public interest. Henderson responds with this priceless quote:

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March 4, 2005 Comments are Disabled News

The Battle over Municipal WiFi (Or Sir Adam Beck’s Internet)

My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, HTML backup article, homepage version) examines the battles over municipal wireless Internet access initiatives. Adam Beck, a provincial cabinet minister from London, Ontario, introduced a bill that created the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario. Adopting Power for the People as his slogan, Beck vigorously fought corporate interests who wanted to keep electricity in private hands. He pushed for a public utility that could provide all Ontario cities and towns with affordable electric power generated from Niagara Falls. His vision led to the worlds largest public utility and dramatically changed the lives of rural Ontarians by bringing electricity to thousands of farms and villages.

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March 3, 2005 Comments are Disabled Columns