Tag torrent(-ial downpour of copyright violation)

Hear the dulcet tones of my voice talking Notice and Notice

 

 

Do you enjoy a lawyer repeatedly saying “you know”? Do you enjoy the line “the Barreau du Quebec would have my butt”? Well then do I have audio for you!

Last week I was on CBC Daybreak with the always excellent Mike Finnerty. We had a really good interview about the 2-year old news story of copyright notices for illegal downloading. It was in the context of a story of a woman who received a notice and paid up. Big mistake! Anyway, I managed to sneak into the Rad-Can building late at night to get my hands on the audio which you can hear above (j/k, they were actually quite nice about it, hat tip to them).

Here’s a true story. I went into the studio at 6:30 AM for the interview, no shower, no shave, my hair was a mess and I was wearing a hoodie. Because it was CBC Radio. Well, as it turns out the 6-7 hour of Daybreak is on CBC TV! A fact i did not know as I am not normally awake at that hour. As a result, I have destroyed all copies of the video in existence. As far as you know.

Enjoy the audio.

Let’s “look” at the TPP

TPPmapHey big news today! And it has brought yours truly out of hiding. So it looks like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a go! What’s the TPP? Damned if I know, because I’ve never seen the TPP agreement. Well, no one has ever seen it! So why is your humble blogger talking about it? A couple of lines on a government website have me perturbed. Let’s find out which ones.

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Internet law expert says things on TV

canada am screen shot3This morning noted internet law expert Allen Mendelsohn (who?) appeared on CTV’s Canada AM to opine about the update to the Copyright Act that came into effect today. It’s called the “notice and notice regime” and I’ve written about it before. Wow, 3 years ago! Everything I wrote is still valid though, as the government did not change or add one word to the law since then. Lazy government.

Anyway, god forbid CTV should have an embeddable video player, so here are some links:

Just the video

Actual news story with quotes from somebody you know (plus the video)

My new year’s resolution is to media whore like it’s 1999. So far so good. I’ll be on CJAD tomorrow at 7:10 AM, CKNW on Sunday at 4:30 PM (EST) and on other radio stations Monday morning. Just waiting on The National. Call me, CBC!

Rough waters for the Pirate Bay this week

rough waters pirate bayYou know an internet law story is real news when the national media calls me. I’m obviously the most important and telegenic internet law expert in Canada. While my CTV Canada AM appearance was cancelled at the last minute, CBC online contacted me yesterday for a comment on the Pirate Bay raid and torrents in general for an article that should be up soon (update – voilà). Is the Pirate Bay sunk? Let’s review. And speculate wildly! My specialty!

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Remember Al? He’s back – in podcast form!

Podcast

I had the pleasure of sitting down recently with the fine folks from the McGill Law Journal, who have an amazing podcast series, with lots of law learnin’ ‘n stuff. For some reason they thought I would be a good guest. Big mistake. The title of the podcast is “Seeking Jane Doe: The Voltage Decision”, and obviously, it’s about the Voltage decision. Here is the description:

Voltage, a US film producer and distributor, is using a controversial legal procedure to go after illegal downloading. We talk to Allen Mendelsohn, internet law expert, David Fewer, Director of CIPPIC, and Voltage’s lawyer, John Philpott, about how this will impact Canadian Internet users.

You can listen online, or visit  the iTunes McGill Law Journal podcast page to get it in iTunes.

Arrrrrrrr your piracy days over? Federal Court of Canada weighs in

ARRRGGHH

Last Thursday, a huge decision came down from the Federal Court of Canada in the case of Voltage Pictures v. John Doe and Jane Doe. No, seriously, this is big. 80 Google News results! When was the last time a Federal Court decision even made the news? Does the decision mean the end of Canadian illegal downloading as we know it? Maybe! Maybe not! Well that’s clear as mud. Let’s try and sort this all out.

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That’s it for isoHunt :(

Slow servers, but god I love them

Back in March of this year we wrote “isoHunt is toast“. We were speaking figuratively at the time. Well now we can say it literally – isoHunt is toast. Well, not literally in the sense of the delicious breakfast food, but in the sense that it is over, done, kaput, closed forever. Off to the great website resting place in the sky, where it will party with AltaVista and GeoCities. We haz a sad, but we knew this was coming.

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