Michael Geist

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Weak Copyright Laws? Recording Industry Files Massive Lawsuit Against isoHunt

As the debate over Canada’s copyright reform legislation, Bill C-32,continues to rage before a legislative committee, one of the most frequently heard claims is that tough reforms are needed to counter Canada’s reputation as a “piracy haven”. The presence of several well-known BitTorrent sites, most notably B.C.-based isoHunt, is cited as evidence for Canada’s supposedly lax laws that the industry says leaves it powerless.

When the bill was first introduced last June, the Canadian Recording Industry Association stated that “stronger rules are also needed to rein in Canadian-based peer-to-peer websites, which, according to IFPI,have become ‘a major source of the world’s piracy problem’.”

Politicians have taken note of the concerns. Industry Minister Tony Clement said the new bill will target “wealth destroyers” and Liberal MP Dan McTeague has lamented that “the very existence of an isoHunt in Canada is problematic and is very much the result of what appears to be a legislative holiday for companies and other BitTorrent sites.”

While the notion of a “legislative holiday” appears to be the impetus for some of the provisions on Bill C-32, my weekly technology law column (homepage version, Toronto Star version) notes that what is left unsaid – and thus far unreported – is that 26 of the world’s largest recording companies launched a multi-million dollar lawsuit against isoHunt using existing Canadian copyright law just three weeks before the introduction of the bill [PDF of May 2010 claim, PDF of August 2010 amended claim].

February 14, 2011 — 29 comments — Columns

B.C. Court of Appeal Upholds Internet Ad Keyword Decision

The B.C. Court of Appeal has upheld a lower court decision involving Google AdWords and claims of misleading keywords. I wrote about the decision last year.

February 14, 2011 — Comments are Disabled — News

TVO’s The Agenda on UBB

TVO’s The Agenda covered the usage based billing issue late last week. The debate is available here along with a commentary in support of overturning the CRTC decision.

February 14, 2011 — 1 comment — News

CNOC on the CRTC UBB Review: It’s Re-Arranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic

The Canadian Network Operators Consortium, which represents two dozen independent ISPs, has asked the CRTC to expand the scope of its usage based billing consultation. Rather than limit the review primarily to UBB, CNOC says the review should:

include a comprehensive review of the regulatory framework applicable to all wholesale high-speed access services (â€œWHSASâ€) provided by incumbent local exchange carriers and cable carriers (collectively â€œincumbentsâ€) to their competitors and to include from the outset, in the expanded proceeding, an online consultation and a public hearing, and certain additional procedural steps.

The letter makes it clear that CNOC is seeking nothing less than a complete overhaul of the regulatory framework for broadband competition in Canada. The organization argues that “incumbent wholesale high-speed services, including the last-mile access, constitute the broadband platform that competitors need to offer almost all telecommunications and broadcasting services to consumers.” It adds:

February 12, 2011 — 25 comments — News

Saving the Best for Last: Bell’s Network Congestion Admission

As is often the case with House of Commons committee hearings, yesterday’s Industry Committee hearing on usage based billing saved the best for last. Addressing a specific question from the chair about the separation of IPTV and Internet services on Bell’s network, Bell’s Mirko Bibic responded:

There is a copper loop that goes from our Central Office to the home and all data travels on that pipe so it’s Internet traffic, it’s television traffic, it’s actually voice traffic, long distance traffic, but that’s not where there are general congestion issues. The real issue is when you get to the Central Office and you go behind that to the general Internet, FIBE TV is completely different.

Bell’s comments are noteworthy since they confirm that there is no congestion in the “last mile” – the connection between the user and the so-called Central Office. At the moment, Bell aggregates the data from both its own retail customers and independent ISPs at this stage (which it says causes the congestion necessitating traffic shaping and UBB), though the independent ISP subscriber traffic later goes to the independent ISP before heading to the Internet. The “congestion problem” is therefore not at the last mile nor at the Internet – it is in the intermediate stage between the two.

February 11, 2011 — 62 comments — News