Outstanding detective work from the gang over at Torrentfreak, who have discovered that there is online pirating going on in the U.S. House of Representatives. The same House of Representatives that is currently getting ready to pass SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act. I’ll explain the details of this delicious pile of irony after the jump.
Topic All
Happy (totally non-secular) Holidays!
Sans snark, before Christmas Day ends, just wanted to wish my three faithful readers a very Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Good December 25th, etc. No matter what your faith (or questioning or lack thereof), have an awesome holiday season and a Happy New Year, from all of us (me) at allenmendelsohn.com.
Bell to stop throttling – um, yay?
So earlier this week Bell announced that it would stop its practice of throttling (or to use the telecom euphemism, Internet Traffic Management Practices, ITMPs) of their customers using peer to peer software starting March 1, 2012. This has been seen as a victory for the consumer and the open internet. That’s bullshit. After the jump I’ll explain why.
Kill Bill C-11 Vol. 4: MPs bitch slap each other
Earlier this week, the House of Commons reopened “debate” on Bill C-11, the Copyright Modernization Act. In part 4 of our series on the Bill, we take a little break from the substance to check out some of the choice quotes the MPs threw at each other when discussion began. Check out your parliamentary democracy in action after the jump.
Continue reading
Hot SCC copyright action!
This week at the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) is a HUGE one for copyright, and by extension for internet law. Today and tomorrow, appeals are being heard in five cases that will shape copyright law for years to come. Or until C-11 gets passed and that mess makes it to the Court. ANYWAY, Geist has a basic summary for you about some of the issues that are being heard. Here’s another one. And another. Sure, one more.
The big cases for the internet are SOCAN v. Bell, where the Court will decide if iTunes snippets for preview are fair dealing or not, and if they aren’t they then would be subject to a tariff (payment to the artist). There’s also Rogers v. SOCAN about streaming music and whether it’s “communications to the public” under the Copyright Act (which is important because it would then be protected as copyright in that stream, and subject to royalty payments). Finally, ESAC v. SOCAN (sensing a trend here?) will decide if music in video games downloaded over the internet should be subject to, you guessed it, royalty payments. (The other two cases are about copying works for use in the classroom and remuneration for music in movies and TV. Yawn.)
These are such an important two days in the copyright and internet law world I thought about live blogging the hearings. But I’m not insane (well…). You can watch the hearings here. Yay for an open Supreme Court! But dammit they need some onscreen graphics or something. Even I’m kind of clueless as to who’s who, or even what case is being heard.
UPDATE – good Tweeters to follow along the hearings: Geist, Hayes, Glick, me. #SCCcopyrightpentalogy
A personal snark-free (well, mostly) note
The above video is a wonderful documentary about the Mile End Legal Clinic, an organization that did more good in the last month than you’ve done in your lifetime. The Clinic helps people who can’t afford a lawyer get access to justice and know their rights, thanks to the efforts of lawyers and law students. Notwithstanding its name, it serves people from all over Montreal and Quebec. And I am proud to say that last week, I was named to their Board of Directors.
Now, you may say “but we have legal aid to help people who cannot afford a lawyer.” Well we do, but the system is pretty fucked. To qualify for legal aid as a single person in Quebec, you must have an annual income of $13,007 or less. Stats Canada’s Low Income Cut-off (essentially the “poverty line”, but they’re too chicken-shit to call it that) for a single person in Montreal in 2010 is $18,759. So basically, you can be poor and not qualify for legal aid. That’s fucked up. And that’s why clinics like Mile End are so important, and why I’m excited to help them as a Board member.
So let’s start with this – give them money. Your personal tax year is coming to an end, and you need some charitable deductions, don’t you? Or, you know, helping people.
PIPA / SOPA are evil, Part 1
I’m still working on sorting out my own thoughts on the U.S.’s (latest) attempts to destroy the internet as we know it – SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act, the House bill) and PIPA (Protect IP Act, the Senate’s bill). I am actually trying to read them instead of trusting other people’s interpretations, but fuck, they’re long-winded and boring. Like most laws! In the meantime, I found this excellent video that explains things (though with an obvious perspective) in easy to understand terms, and with some fun graphics. Shoot that pirate flag! Enjoy.
Google FAIL
Pretty slow news week in the world of internet law in Canada. Apparently we can’t have a big CRTC decision every week. Tragic, really. So let’s have a little fun. We’ve got some internet news that’s not law-related out of Google, as yesterday they announced that they are killing off seven Google products due to suckiness. Let’s take a look at the products you won’t miss after the jump.
CRTC gets it right again! (sort of, maybe)
So yesterday our old friends at the CRTC came down with a decent decision. Another one! But it may not really be the awesome win for you and me that you think it is. Let’s take a look at this whole usage-based billing business (say that five times fast) after the jump.
Open internet, hell yeah!
There was a big win today for the open, free internet we’ve come to know and love. The United States Senate rejected a law that would have overturned the net neutrality rules established by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last year. The vote was completely along party lines, with all the Democrats voting to reject, so that should tell you what side of this debate you should be on.
Now, I’m supposed to be talking about internet law in Canada around here, so after the jump I’ll figure out some way to bring this all back home.
Kill Bill C-11 Volume 3.14159…: Make me a mash-up, Mister!
Start Trek:TNG clips + Patrick Stewart’s gay role from Jeffrey = comedy gold. Well, to us geeky types anyway. But is it legal? Under Bill C-11, yes! Well, sort of. As usual, these things are complicated. Join me after the jump for part 3 of my Bill C-11 series to see what you have to do if you want to create and post on YouTube that “Rebecca Black’s Friday Night Lights” video you’ve always dreamed of.
Kill Bill C-11 Volume 2: the notices from your ISP are coming!!!
As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, Bill C-11, The Copyright Modernization Act, has been introduced in Parliament and we are headed to a whole new regime of Copyright in this country. And I promised to have an ongoing series on the effects of the Bill on the internet. Well, two posts counts as a series, right?
After the jump, let’s explore the “notice and notice” regime imposed by the Bill. Sure that sounds boring, but what legal “regime” doesn’t? And you, Mr. or Mrs. Illegal Downloader, will want to know about this.
Allen
Mendelsohn
is me.
I am a lawyer specializing in internet law working out of Montreal, though sometimes I do it in front of the U.S. Capitol. That should tell you what you need to know about internet law in Canada. I also warp young legal minds at the Faculty of Law at McGill.
More about me