The CAP was once a foundational element in the federal government’s effort to connect Canadians. In the late 1990s, many did not have Internet access at home and wireless data plans were still years away. Today, the majority of Canadians have residential broadband access as well as wireless connectivity through their smartphones or other devices.
The decision to cut the CAP therefore does not come as a surprise.
The CRTC has written to participants from the last “fact finding exercise” on over-the-top video services to advise that it believes that no further studies are needed as this time. The Commission notes that “over-the-top programming services have not had an impact sufficient to warrant another fact-finding exercise at this […]
The Economist has an editorial endorsing mandated open access for publicly funded research. It concludes that “government bodies that fund academic research should require that the results be made available free to the public. So should charities that fund research. This would both broaden access to research and strengthen the […]
I posted my initial reaction to the AUCC – Access Copyright deal yesterday. Other comments come from CAUT, Ariel Katz, Sam Trosow, Michael Ridley, and Meera Nair.
It is difficult to provide detailed comments on the agreement since the text is not yet available and the $26 figure is not based on anything more than a negotiated figure reflecting what two parties anxious to settle were willing to pay or accept. The reality is that it is primarily a product of a broken Copyright Board model that incentivizes lofty demands that set the bar higher for either a negotiated settlement or a Board rate setting exercise. It is not based on the actual value of the repertoire nor on the copying on campuses that fall outside of fair dealing, public domain, or the myriad of alternate licenses that already grants compensated access to thousand of journals and books.
Risky Business: The Legal and Privacy Concerns of Mandatory Age Verification Technologies 
Another Canadian Digital Policy Own Goal: Corporate TikTok Ban Leads to Millions in Lost Cultural Group Support 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 239: The Rise and Fall of Canada’s Digital Services Tax 
Canada’s DST Debacle a Case Study of Digital Strategy Trouble 
Canadian Government Caves on Digital Services Tax After Years of Dismissing the Risks of Trade Retaliation
Michael Geist
mgeist@uottawa.ca
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