Recent decisions to abandon a three strikes and you're out copyright model in New Zealand, the UK, and Germany, have not been replicated in two other countries. Last week, both France and South Korea moved toward implementing the approach in their national laws.
Telecom by yum9me (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/53jSy4
Telecom
European Parliament Rejects Three Strikes and You’re Out Approach
Days after New Zealand dropped its support for the "three strikes and you're out" approach (also known as "graduated response") that would see ISPs terminate subscribers on the basis of three unproven allegations of copyright infringement, the European Parliament has similarly rejected the proposed approach. Le Quadrature du Net reports […]
Ontario Court Orders Website To Disclose Identity of Anonymous Posters
An Ontario court has ordered the owners of the FreeDominion.ca to disclose all personal information on eight anonymous posters to the chat site. The required information includes email and IP addresses. The case arises from a lawsuit launched by Richard Warman, the anti-hate fighter, against the site and the posters. The court focused heavily on the Ontario Rules of Civil Procedure, which contain a strong duty of disclosure on litigants.
The discussion includes a review of many key Internet privacy cases, including the CRIA file sharing litigation (which the court distinguishes on the basis of different court rules) and the Irwin Toy case (which emphasized the importance of protecting anonymity, but which the court tries to distinguish on the basis of the newness of the issue at the time). The court also looks at the string of recent cases involving child pornography cases and ISP disclosure of customer information, concluding that "the court's most recent pronouncement on this is that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy."
NZ Government Drops Three Strikes Copyright Plan
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has announced the government will throw out the controversial Section 92A of the Copyright Amendment (New Technologies) Act and start again. The provision involved a three strikes and you’re out plan for alleged copyright infringement. "Section 92a is not going to come into force […]
Canadian Privacy Rights Buried in the Fine Print
Scott McNealy, the former CEO of Sun Microsystems, has achieved considerable notoriety for having warned Internet users ten years ago that "you have no privacy, get over it." Recent headlines suggest that the Ontario courts have adopted those sentiments, as two recent decisions involving the disclosure of subscriber information by Internet service providers confirmed that revealing personal information to law enforcement without a warrant is permitted under Canadian privacy law.
While some view these cases as providing conclusive evidence that Canadians enjoy little privacy in identifying data such as customer name and address information, my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) argues that a closer look at the decisions and industry practices reveal that the issue is not entirely settled.
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