Fair Dealing by Giulia Forsythe (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/dRkXwP

Copyright

Canadian Copyright Petition Presented to Parliament

Yesterday Peter Julian, an MP from Burnaby, BC, presented to the House of Commons the first of what is likely to be several petitions calling for a balanced copyright approach in Canada.

Copyright’s Convergence

My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version and non-reg hyperlinked version, homepage version) reflects on two major copyright events of the past ten days — last week's Grokster case and the recently announced Canadian copyright reforms. Of all the interesting anecdotes about the Grokster case, I found the fact that people began lining up at 2:30 p.m. the day before the hearing the most interesting. As I argue in the column, when people are willing to line up for nearly 24 hours to hear a copyright case, something far bigger than accessing free music is taking place.

The Real Story Behind Canada’s Copyright Plans

My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version or free hyperlinked Ottawa Citizen version, homepage version) provides some context for last week s announcement on the government s plans for Canadian copyright reform. The immediate spin from the recording industry was that they were delighted with the push toward copyright reform. While I am sure they are happy that the government is doing something, a closer look at the actual proposals suggest that they did not get much of what they wanted.