IT World Canada reports on ISP regulation at the Canadian ISP Summit (I was panelist) where Chris Tacit, who acts from the Canadian Network Operators Consortium, indicated that the costs associated with implementing lawful access could cause some smaller operators to close up shop.
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The Daily Digital Lock Dissenter, Day 33: City of Vancouver Archives
Archives frequently need to undertake actions that could be considered infringing in order to preserve works, conserve a damaged work, and otherwise manage their holdings. This is particularly relevant in the case of digital works, where the inherent fragility of these works makes it regularly necessary to create back-up copies of works, to migrate works to new physical media because of hardware obsolescence, and to migrate works to new logical formats because of software obsolescence in order to prevent them from being lost or becoming inaccessible.
If a work is protected by encryption or other technical protection measures (TPMs) it may be necessary to circumvent these measures in order to be able to back-up, conserve or preserve a work. Circumvention of TPMs for these purposes should not be an infringement. Finally, it is not only archives and cultural institutions that need to undertake these actions, but all persons who own these types of works. Because of this, this exception should not be limited to only archives, libraries and museums – it should be a general exception.
File Sharing Lawsuits Progress in Canada as Dozens Face Payment Demands
Several months later, sources advise that the demand letters to alleged file sharers have been sent. Assuming the content of the letters mirrors that found in the U.S. (which it likely does), the subscribers face demands to pay $2900 to settle the case, which increases to $3900 if the target does not accept the offer within three weeks. A copy of a recent U.S. letter can be found here. The system is so automated that there is a website devoted to the settlements with “all major credit cards accepted.”
The Daily Digital Lock Dissenter, Day 32: Canadian Association of University Teachers
The current proposed prohibition on the circumvention of technological measures and the devices that facilitate that purpose render meaningless not only the rights of the education community but of the rights of access enjoyed by Canadians at large. To avoid this regime of unreasonable owner control, the Act must be amended to allow the circumvention of technological protection measures (TPMs) for non-infringing purposes.
The SCC Copyright Pentalogy
The University of Ottawa’s Centre for Law, Technology and Society will be hosting a free public event on the upcoming Supreme Court of Canada hearings on copyright as five cases will be before the court in early December. The panel includes my colleagues Jeremy deBeer and David Fewer, the Copyright […]