copyright

57 posts

The Songwriters Association of Canada Wants To Embrace File Sharing, But Does It Have the Right Approach?

This post originally appeared on Techdirt. in 2007, the Songwriters Association of Canada gained some international headlines with a proposal to legalize non-commercial peer-to-peer file sharing through an ISP levy. This sort of proposal wasn’t new, but had not been so prominently put forth by an artist organization before. There […]

New Canadian Copyright Bill C-32: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, And What To Do About It

As expected, the Canadian government tabled a new copyright bill today. Despite the consultation last summer, rumour has it that Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore and Industry Minister Tony Clement—the two cabinet ministers responsible for copyright (who seemed to understand the new opportunities technology presents)—couldn’t come to an agreement, and […]

The future of electronic publishing and reading

Last Wednesday, I had the opportunity to sit on a panel for an event put on by the Society of Internet Professionals: The Future of E-Publishing and E-Reading. The following is a rough approximation of my presentation. Digital technology has a disruptive effect on traditional content industries in many ways, […]

Charlie Angus brings copyright reform back into the spotlight

This post originally appeared at RootsMusic.ca Credit: mgifford [CC BY-SA] Last month, NDP MP (and former member of the Grievous Angels) Charlie Angus shook up Canada’s copyright debate by proposing two reforms. Angus was outspoken against the government’s last copyright bill, but he’s attracted criticism from all sides with this […]

How is a three strikes proposal supposed to work for mobile data?

Credit: William Hook [CC BY-SA] Honestly, I still have trouble convincing myself that the push by the record industry to implement a three-strikes-and-you’re-out (that is, three-accusations-and-you’re-kicked-offline-for-a-year) system is actually happening, that grown men and women running companies claim—with a straight face—that this will save failing business models. It’s just so […]

Copyright Infringement and the Theft Metaphor

I’ve got a new post up at Roots Music Canada, why copyright infringement isn’t theft, which draws on William Patry’s book, Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars, to explain that theft is a poor metaphor for copyright infringement. Canadian law professor Stephen Waddams, in a well-regarded book about how we […]

SOCAN Tries To Keep Its Copyright Consultation Submission Offline And Secret, But Fails

This post originally appeared on Techdirt. We were just talking about how SOCAN, the Canadian copyright collection society, was going after gymnastics clubs for kids using music in their practice routines. Now they’re getting some well-deserved attention for other antics. Michael Geist explains how SOCAN tried to keep its submission […]