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Android Dev Phone 2 (aka Google Ion & HTC Magic) by Cedric Sam (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/7sBBdQ

Bell’s Latest Privacy Solution: Enhance Internet Privacy By Blocking Access to It

The Canadaland report on Bell’s plans to apply to the CRTC to create a website blocking agency unsurprisingly sparked immediate widespread concern. I provided further detail on the proposal, noting the danger of establishing a blocking system without court review of the block list and the very weak case Bell makes to justify it. A critical aspect of the Bell proposal is that it must convince the CRTC that website blocking would further Canada’s telecommunications policy objectives. Given that the CRTC has already ruled that the law prohibits blocking without its approval, that is a difficult standard to meet. I argue that the three justifications raised by Bell – that piracy “threatens the social and economic fabric of Canada”, that the telecommunications system should “encourage compliance with Canadian laws” and that website blocking “will significantly contribute toward the protection of the privacy of Canadian Internet users” – is very weak.

In fact, the privacy argument is not only weak, it is incredibly hypocritical. Bell is arguably the worst major Canadian telecom company on user privacy and its attempt to justify website blocking on the grounds that it wants to protect privacy is shameful. There are obviously far better ways of protecting user privacy from risks on the Internet than blocking access to sites that might create those risks. Further, with literally millions of sites that pose some privacy risk, few would argue that the solution lies in blocking all of them.

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December 5, 2017 6 comments News
▇▇▇▇ [1113] by Brian J. Matis (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/bfa2dF

Bell Leads on Radical Proposal for CRTC-Backed Mandatory Website Blocking System

Canadaland reports today that Bell is leading a coalition that plans to file a proposal with the CRTC that would lead to the creation a mandatory website blocking system in Canada. The unprecedented proposal, which includes the creation of a new “Internet Piracy Review Agency”, envisions the creation of mandatory block lists without judicial review to be enforced by the CRTC. As a result, the companies (reportedly including Rogers and Cineplex) envision sweeping new Internet regulations with the CRTC ultimately charged with enforcing site blocking by every Internet provider in Canada. I reviewed the proposal in order to provide comments to the Canadaland.

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December 4, 2017 32 comments News
internet is freedom of speech by pgrandicelli BEE FREE (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/6F5Cu1

Canada’s Missing Internet Provision: Why NAFTA Offers the Chance to Establish Long Overdue Online Speech Safeguards

During the earliest days of the commercial Internet, the United States enacted the Communications Decency Act, legislation designed to address two concerns with the rapidly growing online world: the availability of obscene materials and the liability of Internet services hosting third party content. While the obscenity provisions in the 1996 law were quickly struck down as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, the liability rules emerged as a cornerstone of U.S. Internet policy.

The rules, which many regard as the single most important legal protection for free speech on the Internet, establish a safe harbour that ensures online services are not liable for the content posted by their users. My Globe and Mail op-ed notes that over the past two decades, the CDA Section 203(c) provision has been used by every major Internet service – from Google to Amazon to Airbnb – to ensure that courts, not private companies, determine what is lawful and permitted to remain online.

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December 1, 2017 5 comments Columns
Internet Open by Blaise Alleyne (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/54QttY

Net Neutrality Divide: Canada and the U.S. Go Separate Ways on an Open Internet

This week’s announcement that the U.S. telecommunications regulator plans to roll back net-neutrality regulations sparked an immediate backlash from those who fear that the decision will turn the Internet into a cable-like service dominated by the carriers and deep-pocketed giants that can afford to pay new fees to keep their content on the fast lane.

My Globe and Mail op-ed notes that the U.S. order, which would also block states from carrying out their own versions of policies that stop telecom carriers from leveraging their gatekeeper status by treating similar content or applications differently, is set for a vote next month.

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November 23, 2017 8 comments Columns
Santeri Viinamäki [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Music Canada Data Confirms Huge Increase in Streaming Revenues and Sharp Decline of Music Listening from Pirated Sources

Music Canada released a report on the so-called Value Gap last month which serves as the basis for its lobbying campaign for copyright reform in Canada. The industry lobby group has used the value gap rhetoric primarily as an argument to undo safe harbours for Internet intermediaries. As I noted earlier this year, the argument is poor fit in Canada. First, Canada has experienced massive growth of Internet streaming revenues, with the Canadian music market outpacing global competitors by almost any metric and revenues going to both the industry and creators.

Yesterday I posted on SOCAN generating a 10X increase in Internet streaming revenues with growth rates of over 100 per cent over the past year for songwriters, composers, and music publishers. The industry numbers from Music Canada and IFPI tell a similar story. According to industry data, the Canadian music market is growing much faster than the world average (12.8 per cent in 2016 vs. 5.9 per cent globally), streaming revenues more than doubled last year to US$127.9 million (up from US$49.82 million) growing far faster than the world average of 60.4 per cent, the Canadian digital share of revenues of 63 per cent is far above the global average of 50 per cent, and Canada has leaped past Australia to become the 6th largest music market in the world. In fact, as the chart below indicates, the growth of streaming revenues in Canada since the 2012 copyright reforms has increased significantly year-after-year with growth rates for the industry and collectives mirroring each other.

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November 22, 2017 10 comments News