A CBC News article reports that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has asked Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean not to attend the Paralympic Games in Beijing, in a move further suggesting he may trigger a federal election.

Readers of this blog have the tools they need to evaluate some interesting industry initiatives. The major motion picture studios are trying to devise an Open Market scheme to make DRM systems interoperable, and Sun wants to offer an "Open Source DRM" via their Project DReaM of the Open Media Commons.

We've discussed the technical and legal underpinnings of these DRM systems:

• Device manufacturers and/or software authors use locked down hardware/software which implement "use control" technological measures
  
• Copyright holder (or someone they authorize) encodes the copyrighted content in an "access control" technological measure which makes the content only interoperable with authorized devices (i.e. devices with required decryption keys)
  

Read the rest of this entry »

read more

The most recent in a series of article by Dave Gutteridge discussing how "software piracy is proprietary software's best ally in keeping legally free software at bay."

Many people remark about how similar Bill C-61 is to the USA's DMCA. While Industry Minister Jim Prentice claims that things like the time and device shifting are "made in Canada" (See: Made Worse in Canada (feat. Jim Prentice)), these types of changes were unnecessary in the USA with their many decades old living Fair Use regime. This living Fair Use regime makes US law already far more balanced than Canadian law. If we want to do things right we should drop those excessively limited provisions from the bill, and instead adopt a living Fair Use regime similar to the one in the USA.

As a technical person, my focus is of course on technological measures which is entirely about what software citizens are and are not allowed to run on their own computers.

Read the rest of this entry »

read more

An interesting set of threads on SlashDot about the Democratic Convention website using Microsoft's Silverlight platform to distribute multimedia -- excluding anyone not running Windows or MacOS. This is the same party who through policy-laundering their NII policy through WIPO gave the USA their DMCA and was the blueprint for Bill C-61.

It may be interesting for Canadians to speculate what outcome of the 2008 US election will be worse for harming the rights of technology owners. Other thoughts?

See also: ZDNet: Joe Biden's pro-RIAA, pro-FBI tech voting record by Declan McCullagh

read more

In an interview by Jesse Brown of CBC's Search Engine, Jim Prentice suggested that "even for private personal use ... one should not be breaking a digital lock". This statement, along with many others made in the interview, suggest that Minister Prentice does not understand the controversy around the uses and abuses of digital locks. His suggestion that the recording industry has been moving away from digital locks also reminds us that he is unaware that most of the controversy is not around locks applied to content, but locks applied to devices (Even in the “DRM” debate, Content is not King).

Read the rest of this entry on IT World Canada's blog »

read more

A New York times article by David Carr discusses the Obama teams use of new media.

The presidential campaign of Barack Obama has all but christened a new era by seizing the medium itself. The network pageantry has been replaced by the network effect — a huge pipe directly to his supporters, no intermediation involved. The press, it seems, just gets in the way.

An article by Joseph Menn, a Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, focused on whether Mickey Mouse was in the public domain. The broader, and I think more important policy issue this debate brings forward, is why we are continuing to use such extremely complex formula for determining when human creativity finally becomes recyclable (copyright term expires).

Corey Grajkowski blogs about his thus-far unsuccessful attempts to meet with his own MP, Hon. Rona Ambrose. He sent a followup letter today to Ms. Ambrose.

Some interesting notes in an article on Garth Turner's blog:

And for a half hour before the main event, Dion and I met with three or four dozen bloggers, where he fielded questions on everything from a current right-wing assault on the Supreme Court to the copyright law everyone hates. Although I would not call him a digital guy, he clearly understands the power of the medium to reach increasing numbers of voters and citizens. Most importantly, as I mentioned yesterday, my very relationship with this man is worth marking. Harper read my blog and threw me out. Dion reads it, and asks us all in.

Hat tip to Michael Geist.

read more

Michael Byers posted a link to the interview I did with him, and is continuing the conversation in comments on his blog. Noticing that Hon. Hedy Fry, the incumbent Liberal in that riding, has been going around doing consultations with Canadians I asked Mr. Byers his impressions of what she has been saying.

read more

According to a Wired article by David Kravets, a federal judge on Wednesday said copyright owners must consider "fair use" of their works before sending takedown notices to online video-sharing sites.

This is also yet another reminder that you cannot automate copyright issues in software. What is and is not permissible under copyright is something that requires human thinking about things such as fair use, and not something which can be objectively written into computer software. In a rational society this would kill attempts to force ISPs to install filters given there is no way the filter can be accurate.

read more

I glanced at CPAC earlier this week, and noticed Bill Buxton giving a talk. I looked things up, and found out this was at the 77'th annual Couchiching conference and that CPAC's Video on Demand had this full talk (and even longer Q&A session), as well as a few others from the conference that I also plan to watch later (watch then soon, as CPAC only keeps the videos available for a limited amount of time).

While there are some things that Mr. Buxton believes that I don't agree with, I find that there is more I agree with than disagree. While the whole conference titled "The Power of Knowledge: the New Global Currency" appears to have themes which tie in directly with anyone who reads my blog,. I want to recommend you start with Mr. Buxton's talk.

Read the rest of this entry on IT World Canada's blog »

read more

I wanted to quickly hilight Corey Grajkowski's blog. His "about me" says the following:

I am mostly concerned about where technology and law meet. I fear that those who make the laws will not understand the effects it will actually have. I leave other political issues to those who know more than me. I am the founder for the Fair Copyright for Canada - Edmonton Chapter and I support the CIPPIC.

read more

There is an interesting article by Gale Holland in the Los Angeles Times talking about the "eye-popping costs" of college and university textbooks. Caltech economics professor R. Preston McAfee offers a solution, which is to create textbooks that can be freely distributed given the bulk of these costs come from copyright costs and the costs of largely unnecessary intermediaries. McAfee "finds it annoying that students and faculty haven't looked harder for alternatives to the exorbitant prices".

Read the rest of this entry on IT World Canada's blog »

read more

Cory Doctorow posts his Personal endorsement for Anne Lagacé Dowson, candidate in Westmount-Ville-Marie, Quebec.

This is great to hear, and I hope people in this riding will make digital copyright an issue!

See also: Hill Times: Garneau, Dowson going head-to-head for Westmount byelection seat, p2pnet: Canada’s Copyright party is … the NDP?

read more

Mark Surman is one of those cool fellow travellers who I keep bumping into around anything online and open -- CopyCamp, Penguin Day, etc. Recently an open philanthropy fellow at the Shuttleworth Foundation, he is now moving to becoming the Executive Director at the Mozilla Foundation.

Great stuff, Mark!

read more

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called a fourth federal byelection for Sept. 22 in the Toronto riding of Don Valley West. (CBC, Prime Minister's site).

Candidates:

• John Carmichael, Conservative
  
• Rob Oliphant, Liberal
  
• David Sparrow , NDP
  
• Dr. Georgina Wilcock, Green
  

Riding information from Fair Copyright for Canada, Toronto Chapter.

read more

The August issue of Standon's "Staying Connected" lists riding events, including a Copyright town hall.

August 28'th -- Copyright Reform
Coldwater -- Royal Canadian Legion Branch 270 (2 Michael Anne Dr.) 7pm-9pm

Folks from Toronto have organized a bus and made a facebook event. Looking forward to reading summaries/etc.

An amusing article by Steven Musil for cNet:

Four songs from the Irish rock band's forthcoming album found themselves on the Internet after U2 front man Bono was caught playing the songs a bit too loudly on his stereo at his villa in the south of France.

read more