Mark Hamilton notes that Puretracks has now claimed that it will offer Mac compatibility for its DRM-free music "very soon" for about five months.
Post Tagged with: "drm"
Is Content Filtering the New DRM?
There was a time when Internet service providers would not touch the idea of blocking or filtering content, particularly after the Stratton Oakmont decision in the U.S., which intimated that ISPs that got into the content monitoring business would face potential liability for legal issues arising from such content. No […]
Canadians Pay More for Apple’s DRM-Free Music
Joseph Thornley notes that Apple has announced that Canadians will pay 33% more for Apple's DRM-free music than U.S. customers. While U.S. consumers pay 30 cents more per song, the Canadian price jump is 40 cents, despite the fact that the currency difference is now very small.
Will The Next Copyright Bill Pass Constitutional Scrutiny?
My colleague Jeremy deBeer has been the leading voice questioning whether anti-circumvention legislation – the legal protection for DRM that is often described as "para-copyright" – is constitutional, given that the potential rules arguably involve property rights (which falls under provincial jurisdiction) far more than traditional copyright (a federal matter). […]
Canadian DMCA To Be Introduced This Spring
The Hill Times reports this week (issue still not online) that the Conservative government will introduce copyright reform legislation this spring provided that there is no election. The paper points to two main changes from the Liberals Bill C-60 – tougher anti-circumvention legislation (ie. DMCA-style laws that ban devices that can be used to circumvent as well as provisions that block all circumvention subject to the odd exception) and an educational exception that will provide for free access to web-based materials.
If this report is true, the bill will be remarkable in its ability generate more opposition than any prior copyright bill in Canadian history. From a policy perspective, it is a disaster – dangerous and unnecessary laws to support DRM and an educational exception that does little to address the needs of the education community while encouraging even greater use of DRM.
From a political perspective, it is even worse. Who will oppose the bill? For starters:
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