Search Results for "c-11" : 411

CBA Responds to Smear Campaign: Not a Secret Committee, No Plagiarism

The Chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s IP Committee, Torys lawyer Andrew Bernstein, has sent a public letter to the thousands of IP Committee members responding to the media reports of pressure to withdraw a CBA copyright submission. The CBA letter not only debunks claims of secrecy and plagiarism, but […]

March 9, 2012 — 5 comments — News

Dear Parliament: Say No to the Internet Lockdown

Open Media has launched a campaign to encourage Canadians to speak out before Monday’s Bill C-11 meeting. The group makes it easy to speak out against SOPA style reforms, harms to fair dealing, and unduly restrictive digital lock rules. Postmedia’s Sarah Schmidt covers the upcoming amendments here.

March 9, 2012 — 1 comment — News

Setting the Record Straight on the Copyright Lobby’s Latest Smear Campaign

The National Post ran a story yesterday (picked up today by Terence Corcoran) focused on the efforts of a series of IP lawyers who represent the music, movie, and software industries (including copyright collectives) to pressure the Canadian Bar Association to withdraw its submission on Bill C-32 (now C-11). The submission isn’t particularly damaging to their clients’ interests, but it does demonstrate the deep divisions that exist within the legal profession about the government’s copyright reform bill, particularly the misgivings over the digital lock rules. Given the ongoing effort of these industries and their representatives to inaccurately paint Canada as a piracy haven and of the need to follow the U.S. approach on digital locks, it would seem that any crack in that armour is viewed as a threat. With false claims of plagiarism and insinuations of policy laundering, this post sets the record straight.

March 8, 2012 — 14 comments — News

The Other Shoe Drops: Music Reps Want SOPA-Style Website Blocking Added To Copyright Bill

The Bill C-11 committee conducts its final witness hearing on copyright reform today and not a moment too soon. Based on the demands from music industry witnesses this week, shutting down the Internet must surely be coming next. The week started with the Canadian Independent Music Association seeking changes to the enabler provision that would create liability risk for social networking sites, search engines, blogging platforms, video sites, and many other websites featuring third party contributions. It also called for a new iPod tax, an extension in the term of copyright, a removal of protections for user generated content, parody, and satire, as well as an unlimited statutory damage awards and a content takedown system with no court oversight. CIMA was followed by ADISQ, which wants its own lawful access approach that would require Internet providers to disclose subscriber information without court oversight based on allegations of infringement (the attack on fair dealing is covered in a separate post).

Yesterday the Canadian Music Publishers Association added to the demand list by pulling out the SOPA playbook and calling for website blocking provisions. Implausibly describing the demand as a “technical amendment”, the CMPA argued that Internet providers take an active role in shaping the Internet traffic on their systems and therefore it wants to “create a positive obligation for service providers to prevent the use of their services to infringe copyright by offshore sites.” If the actual wording is as broad as the proposal (the CMPA acknowledged that it has an alternate, more limited version), this would open the door to blocking thousands of legitimate sites. The CMPA admitted that the proposal bears a similarity to SOPA and PIPA, but argued that it was narrower than the controversial U.S. bills. While that may technically be true – SOPA envisioned DNS blocking and targeting advertising and payment networks – the website blocking provisions look a lot like the legislation that sparked massive public protest.

March 7, 2012 — 30 comments — News

U.S. Says Canada Will Not Have A Say in the TPP

At a stakeholder meeting yesterday, the U.S. Trade Representative indicated that Canada would not have a voice in negotiating the Trans Pacific Partnership. The USTR has adopted the position that late entrants such as Canada, Japan, and Mexico will have to take the agreement “as is”, potentially including copyright term […]

March 7, 2012 — 5 comments — News