Are there benefits to “piracy”?
Thursday, November 6th, 2008 Posted in Business Law, Information Technology, Intellectual Property, Video Games | 1 Comment »The pro-copyright, pro-DMCA, anti-counterfeit lobby groups would have you believe that all unauthorized reproduction (and distribution), colloquially known (inaccurately) as piracy, is horrid for the industries concerned, and is destroying them. They go so far as to call it theft, ...
Hedy Fry’s Copyright Balance
Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 Posted in Intellectual Property, Privacy | No Comments »The electoral district in which I live is called "Vancouver Centre." My elected representative is the Honourable Member of Parliament, Dr. Hedy Fry. Dr. Fry is something of an activist; she has always been an outspoken representative of her constituents. ...
The “Deliverance” of C-61 Begins
Thursday, June 19th, 2008 Posted in Information Technology, Intellectual Property | No Comments »Here we go... [UPDATED: Links added] It's been a week since the Minister of Information Industry, Jim Prentice, dropped a piano Bill C-61 on us. Thanks to Prof. Michael Geist, we had some warning: This bill would ...
RIAA and MPAA hijack the border (or someone like them)
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 Posted in Civil Liberties, Information Technology, Intellectual Property | No Comments »Cyberion, at Tazzu, posted a link to the Vancouver Province story on the threatened border checks on the legitimacy of electronic media. (Cyberion's post) I had some rather strong feelings, and ranted the following: This is one of the nastiest and ...
Reconstituting the Copyfight Polarization, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Corporation
Monday, February 18th, 2008 Posted in Business Law, Intellectual Property | No Comments »I was recently discussing with a colleague on Tazzu the new allies the Copyfight seems to have found: Tazzu Discussion Thread: "The Forces of CopyRightness gain another ally" Ars Technica: The Privacy Commissioner is not a big fan of the ...
DMCA-Free Canada: a land of opportunity
Thursday, January 3rd, 2008 Posted in Information Technology, Intellectual Property | No Comments »Technological Protection Measures (TPMs) are the fortresses of code, silicon, and/or law that enforce Digital Rights Management (DRM). By not criminalizing (as a per se offense) the circumvention of TPMs, Canada keeps the doors open to innovation. Period. Innovation is not ...
Copyfight: it’s about use
Tuesday, December 25th, 2007 Posted in Communications, Information Technology, Intellectual Property | No Comments »Why does the history matter? From Stationers to Sony, it’s about use. In this discussion about the Canadian Copyright Reform Bill, we are really discussing several legal ideas, which though often conflated are subtly different. History demonstrates this conflation through the ...
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