The Supreme Court of Canada this morning ruled that the federal government’s plan to create a single securities regulator is unconstitutional since it stretches the federal trade and commerce clause too far into provincial jurisdiction. The ruling is a wake-up call on the limits of federal powers, even where many […]
Latest Posts
Letters Of The Law: The Year In Tech Law And Policy
A is for the Amazon one-click patent, which is at the centre of a long running fight over the validity of business method patents in Canada.
B is for Baglow v. Smith, an Ontario Superior Court decision which ruled that comments on a blog should not necessarily give rise to a claim in defamation, when the person alleging defamation has a right of reply in the same blog.
C is for Century 21, which won a major case over Rogers Communications and its real estate search site Zoocasa. The case included important findings on online contracts, trespass, and copyright.
Canadian Library Association on C-11
The Canadian Library Association has released a new position paper on Bill C-11. The CLA directs much of its concern to the digital lock rules: The prohibitions on the circumvention of digital locks in Bill Câ€11 exceed Canada’s obligations under WIPO copyright treaties. Canada agreed to distinctive wording and flexibilities […]
Fair Dealing’s 100 Years of Solitude
Ariel Katz has a must-read post on the history of fair dealing. Katz states “the notion that if a purpose isn’t explicitly enumerated, it is categorically excluded from the purview of fair dealing, is antithetical to the purpose of the Copyright Act. In order to encourage future innovation and creativity […]
CRTC’s Net Neutrality Rules in Action: Bell To Drop P2P Traffic Shaping
Bell advised the CRTC yesterday that it plans to drop all peer-to-peer traffic shaping (often called throttling) as of March 1, 2012. While the decision has been described as surprising or as quid pro quo for the usage based billing ruling, I think it is neither of those. The writing […]
Recent Posts
What Is the Canadian Government Doing With Its Incoherent Approach to TikTok? 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 240: Dean Beeby on Why Canada’s Language Laws May Stop Government From Posting Access to Information Records Online 
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
