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Recent Posts
- Research in Motion’s Opportunity to Promulgate Freedom
- Bill C-32: The Latest Attempt to Amend the Copyright Act
- Interpreting the NHL and the disallowed Sedin goal
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- Technology (law) is everywhere!
- How to save a drowning business
- Information is the Good, the Currency, and the Era
- Opening the Scope of Employee Contribution
- On Virtual Travel
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- Laws for the Virtual Universe
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- Richard Stallman came to Vancouver, and I upset him
- Does WOM or Social Network Marketing Create Agency?
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- Jeremy Costin on Research in Motion’s Opportunity to Promulgate Freedom
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Category Archives: Privacy
Victoria venue to infringe civil liberties
The Save-On Foods Memorial Centre in Victoria wants to take B.C.’s anti-smoking legislation a bit further. Not only will they enforce the existing No Smoking laws, they will also prohibit the innocuous carrying of cigarettes by patrons on the premises.
Possession of cigarettes is neither illegal nor dangerous per se. Searching explicitly for cigarettes, without the pretence (which I assume will be assumed) of searching for illegal or dangerous goods, is trespass to the person, bordering on the tort of assault. Confiscating those cigarettes is conversion; the Save-On Foods Memorial Centre is counting on your complacency and acquiescence as it invades your space and takes what it rightfully yours. Are they going to compensate you for the cigarettes? Return them at your whim? I doubt it. This erosion of civil liberties has gone on long enough. Continue reading
Hedy Fry’s Copyright Balance
Honourable Member of Parliament Dr. Hedy Fry responded to Bill C-61 in a letter to constituent Chuck LeDuc Diaz, which he published on his blog. I respond to Dr. Fry’s letter. She is correct on certain critiques of the Bill, but misses a crucial point in her statement about balanced rights between creator and consumer. Continue reading
Posted in Intellectual Property, Privacy
Tagged C-61, Canadian DMCA, copyfight, copyright, copyright reform, DMCA, hedy fry
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Is there a Master Chef at Bell?
Bell claims that they have to throttle bandwidth or Internet access will be slow for everyone. Since it was only with the discovery that Bell was shuffling high-payload users into a slow lane that we found out that there were people moving along faster, it now recasts the entire argument as follows:
Bell originally marketed ultra-high speed access as a fast lane since everything was getting slow. Now we know that it was only slow for those upon whom slowness was being forced by Bell so that they could then justify the higher price of ultra-high speed (i.e. allegedly unthrottled) access. Bell claims this is necessary, as there is an imminent threat to everyone’s bandwidth. But unlike a concrete highway, bandwidth is not based on scarce real property. It is based on virtually limitless fibre-optic trunks and always-improving server technology. The physical space occupied by these bandwidth highways is minimal; the physical space required for expansion, if it is in fact necessary, is negligible. Continue reading
How to make the Massive Tech Show into a massive tech show
I’ve been critical of the Vancouver Massive Tech Show both here and on Tazzu. I’ve branded it as boring, uninspired, a waste of an afternoon, and anything but either massive or a show. I’ve been challenged to propose something better, … Continue reading
Posted in Business Law, Communications, Information Technology, Privacy, Video Games, Virtual Worlds
Tagged Information Technology, Massive, Tazzu, tech show
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Of Words, and Acts, and Ministers
However, this post is not about the new copyright act directly, nor is it about consumer rights or even election promises. Rather it is about the drastic impact that a single word (or the absence thereof) can make, and the difference between what is said and what is written. Or, in other words, it is example how apparently commendable goals are implemented in dysfunctional ways.
Last week, the Vancouver Sun reported on the effect that 2003 amendments to the B.C. Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act have had on medical research in this province. Continue reading
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