Canada-EU trade: risk-al imbalance

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, November 28, 2012 at 9:28 AM - 0 Comments

Sorry about the headline. You try making this stuff interesting. I was struck last night to read this blog post by intellectual-property smart guy Michael Geist, based on the same leaked European Union memo that led me to write this blog post on our own website on Sunday.

Geist has been following the Canada-EU trade talks very closely, and he has superb sources, so when I ran into him several days ago I couldn’t help asking whether my recent skepticism about the likelihood of a final Canada-EU trade deal is justified. “Probably not,” he said. And fair enough. It’s hard to imagine Canada engaging the EU in five years of talks, and three years of hard negotiations, on what would be the most ambitious trade deal either has undertaken, only to walk away in the home stretch.

But lookie here. Geist now writes that a Canada-EU agreement “is no longer a certainty.” Why? “The EU recognizes the deal is unbalanced as there are far more demands for Canadian changes than European ones,” Geist writes. Continue…

Public policy and the real world

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, June 5, 2012 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments

Michael Geist dismisses Vic Toews’ attempt to link the case of Luka Rocco Magnotta and the government’s “lawful access” legislation.

The Toews comments continue the longstanding trend of unsubstantiated claims by government officials about lawful access. In this case, there is simply no question that law enforcement can obtain the necessary warrant on customer name and address information (if an ISP refused as part of an investigation) and police have presumably obtained warrants for far more detailed information. Moroever, the surveillance capabilities at ISPs mandated by C-30 – which focus on real-time surveillance – appear completely irrelevant given that Magnotta fled to France. In fact, reports indicate that there were early warnings about Magnotta and the video openly available that were dismissed by police.

Bruce Cheadle considers the Eaton Centre shooting in the context of Conservative crime policy.

That the lesson — do the crime, do the time — apparently hasn’t sunk in after more than six years of Conservative rule could be construed as an admission of failure. Nicholson declined an interview request Monday but his office, in an email, listed various gun crime provisions it has enacted and stated “our government has a solid track record when it comes to cracking down on gun crime.”

Christopher Husbands faces one charge of first-degree murder and six counts of attempted murder in regards to the shooting at the Eaton Centre. The mandatory sentence for first-degree murder of life imprisonment with no chance of parole for 25 years was established in 1976. In December 2011, the Harper government repealed the “faint hope” clause for those convicted of first-degree murder.

Threats and support for Vic Toews

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 at 8:28 AM - 0 Comments

A second video purported to be from Anonymous has been released.

The Canadian Association of Chiefs Police, on the other hand, apparently supports C-30, but it’s unclear how either side will be able to use this to bolster their respective arguments. The Harper government might appreciate the endorsement of its legislation, but it previously chose to ignore the CACP’s support for the long-gun registry. The opposition might disagree with C-30, but it still champions the CACP’s support for the long-gun registry as an important consideration.

Meanwhile, Michael Geist again offers some solutions.

What we’re talking about when we talk about lawful access

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 at 11:15 AM - 0 Comments

The Ontario privacy commissioner dismisses both the government’s argument and its rhetoric.

“Simply put, criminals have moved beyond 20th-century technology,” Justice Minister Rob Nicholson declared at a news conference Tuesday. “We need to ensure that law enforcement has the tools necessary to fight crime in the 21st century.” To which Ann Cavoukian, Ontario’s Privacy Commissioner, replied: “Nonsense.” She called the bill “a major intrusion into our personal lives.”

… Ms. Cavoukian, the Ontario privacy commissioner, said she “was so offended” by Mr. Toews’ statement in the House. “But what it showed to me was the weakness of their case.”

Jesse Brown explains some of the implications. Matt Hartley says the government is mired in backwards thinking. Michael Geist answers your questions and proposes compromise.

Lawful Access: a creepy Valentine from Vic Toews

By Jesse Brown - Tuesday, February 14, 2012 at 12:33 PM - 0 Comments

(Sean Kilpatrick/CP)

Vic Toews wants to make one thing clear: He does not want to read my email. His office reached out to me after I wrote this post, which detailed the inability of our police to find one good example of why they need new Lawful Access laws, to be tabled today.  Toews’ flack was eager to set me straight: “No legislation proposed by our Conservative Government will allow police to unlawfully read emails without a warrant.” Thanks, got it. Of course, I never said that it would.

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The counterintuitive truth about piracy and profits

By Peter Nowak - Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 1:44 PM - 0 Comments

Jonathan_W/Flickr

One of my favourite writers is Terence Corcoran, who as editor of the Financial Post is an old colleague of mine. I enjoy reading his columns because whenever he ventures into technology and telecom issues, the result is usually a car wreck. And who doesn’t enjoy watching a car wreck?

Such is the case with a recent column on copyright, which he promoted on Twitter as being penned by the “anti-Geist.” One of Corcoran’s favourite whipping boys is, of course, Michael Geist, the University of Ottawa law professor and Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law who is one of the country’s most-cited experts on copyright law. If you follow both gentlemen, you probably know they, well, don’t like each other, to put it mildly.

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Canada to U.S.: please blacklist us!

By Jesse Brown - Wednesday, September 7, 2011 at 5:15 PM - 30 Comments

Hyper-vigilant Internet Law Prof Michael Geist seems to be the first to have combed through the latest batch of WikiLeaks diplomatic cables, searching for any document containing the words “Canada” and “copyright.” And guess what he found?

• In a 2006 cable, Industry Minister Maxime Bernier promised to leak a copy of his Canadian copyright reform bill to U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins before it was introduced in Parliament.

• In a 2007 cable, the Privy Council Office disclosed to the U.S. details of confidential mandate letters Harper had sent to new ministers, demanding that they get copyright in line with U.S. demands as soon as possible.

• In 2009, Industry Minister Tony Clement’s policy director asked U.S. officials to add Canada to their Special 301 Priority Watch List—also known as the Copyright Blacklist and the Copyright Hall of Shame. They did, placing us alongside China, Russia and Pakistan as one of the world’s worst nations when it comes to piracy and bootlegging. Continue…

'It's just the beginning'

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 13, 2011 at 11:28 AM - 16 Comments

The latest spot from the Conservative side. The Bull Meter has already taken this one apart. Michael Geist, meanwhile, questions the copyright levy the government is already imposing (and has no plans to rescind).

'Freely and unconditionally'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 18, 2011 at 12:47 PM - 7 Comments

Michael Geist notes that the disrepute clause has been used since 2008 and considers the larger culture change at hand.

The government may revise the licence by removing the disrepute term, but I think a larger issue will remain … if licences could talk, this one would say “this is our data and here is how we the government will allow you the public to use it.” But open government means accepting that government data is the public’s data and that the government’s obligation is not to control it, but to make it as freely and unconditionally available to the public as reasonably possible. The right approach in addressing concerns over the new Canada open data portal is not to make a small change in the licence terms by dropping the disrepute provision. It is to drop the current licence altogether, instead adopting a simplified, open licence that tells Canadians it is their data and (subject to reasonable attribution requirements) they are free to access, use, and reuse it without restrictions.

UPDATED AGAIN: Wafergate, Radio-Canada/CBC and the Youtube takedown: Oh boy, an excuse to geek out about copyright law!

By kadyomalley - Friday, July 10, 2009 at 9:56 AM - 40 Comments

UPDATED AGAIN! Scroll down for the official response from CBC/Radio Canada and the poster behind the extended “Wafergate” video!

With thanks to Michael Geist — and whoever first noticed the sudden disappearance of the extended remix of the PM taking communion at the LeBlanc funeral — ITQ is on the case. (Seriously, an excuse to write about digital copyright law? Just try to hold her back.)

Inquiries have been sent out to all of the parties involved — really, you haven’t lived until you’ve tried to explain Wafergate to the sure-to-be-utterly-baffled Youtube press officer at the other end of the general press email address —  and I’ll keep you posted as more information comes out, but in the meantime, I just wanted to make a few quick points based on the discussions that have arisen thus far.

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Olivia Chow’s forum: Let’s get digital, digital, I wanna get…

By Mitchel Raphael - Saturday, March 21, 2009 at 5:24 PM - 0 Comments

Toronto NDP MP Olivia Chow hosted a packed public forum at the University of Toronto. Making It Work: Art, Access and Legislation in the Digital Age was an interactive panel discussion that focused on building an online Canadian arts presence that was fair to the “creator” and “user.”

Speakers included Charlie Angus, the NDP’s Digital Affairs Critic (left) and Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet And E-Commerce Law at the University of Ottawa.

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