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Whoops! I forgot to write a post about the right to be forgotten

Privacy, The Courts

Have you forgotten about Simple Minds?

Sometimes we forget things. Sometimes, we’d like to forget things. You know, like that time I you had a few too many and got naked on the bar and everyone had their iPhones pointed at me you and well, I’ve said too much already. I’d You’d like to forget that incident, but the internet never forgets. And Google never forgets. But thanks to a ruling from a couple of weeks ago that can only be described as “landmark” from the top court in the EU, the Court of Justice, Google kind of has to. Let’s dive in.

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

The Courts

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.

Happy 25th, World Wide Web!

Site meta

The World Wide Web turns 25 years old today. Holy crap! I remember when he was just a young teenager.

The video above is a special message for today from Tim Berners-Lee, the genius who invented the thing. Do you remember the internet before the magical WWW letters? No you don’t. I’ll tell you, it was a nightmare. You had to go to alt.binaries newsgroups for your porn. Now you can just go to https://www.nu-bay.com/ instead. You kids today don’t know how good you have it.

And really, without the web, I’d be stuck as a boring corporate lawyer somewhere. Ugh. I owe my career to Tim Berners-Lee. Thanks Tim. I’ll send you your cut via snail mail. I’m sure it won’t get lost.

Facebook en français s’il vous plaît?

Internet law basics

'stie calice

[Ed.’s (me) note – this post has been updated at the bottom to reflect new developments in the story]

Hoo boy, I do not want to write this post. If there is one thing that scares me it’s wading into the language wars in Québec. I love this province; it’s been my home for all my life, I speak and work in French, I have francophone friends, and we all get along thanks to our shared love of soft runny cheeses, alcohol and nos Habitants (not necessarily in that order). So I don’t like rocking the boat, ya know? But we’ve got ourselves a legitimate internet law question here which I must chronicle. And possibly a legitimate legal debate between lawyers! So ‘stie calice de tabernac, let’s do this.

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

Copyright, The Courts

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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SPAM SPAM SPAM Eggs Bacon and SPAM

Internet law basics, Regulatory regime in Canada

Here are the slides of a presentation I gave this morning for the Plank Breakfast Club, an amazing new series happening at the awesome company where I spent five years, Plank. My audience was enraptured as I regaled them with how their organizations are screwed under Canada’s Anti-Spam Law. I was enraptured by some very good questions:

pensive

(pic courtesy of @iamflb, used without permission, probably)

Happy Holidays, Mad Men-style

Site meta

Best holidya party EVAH

Thanks to all of you for reading the blog this year. Without you, I’d really just be writing a diary. And maybe be in therapy.

Happy Holidays to you. Please enjoy a delicious beverage.

Here’s to a healthy and happy and prosperous 2014 for all. I predict internet law will be important in 2014. This internet technology thingy is going places I tells ya.

All spam in Canada to disappear July 1, 2014

Internet law basics, Regulatory regime in Canada

spammmmmmm

Last Wednesday, the government announced that Bill C-28, aka Canada’s Anti-Spam law, aka CASL, aka “An Act to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian economy by regulating certain activities that discourage reliance on electronic means of carrying out commercial activities, and to amend the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act, the Competition Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and the Telecommunications Act” (no really that’s its official title, click the link) will come into force July 1, 2014, thus putting an end to spam in Canada forever. Or something like that.

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Quebec Court of Appeal declares your Terms of Use useless

Internet law basics, The Courts

It's a nice building

The Court of Appeal of Québec and its multiple phallic columns

It has been a very busy couple of weeks for internet law in Canada. Last week, the Supreme Court of Canada declared Alberta’s privacy law unconstitutional and essentially junked the whole thing. This week, the Conservative government introduced Bill C-13, the so-called “Cyberbullying legislation”, which some are already calling a bullshit excuse for more of the lawful access crap we had with Bill C-30. That’s some important stuff I’ll write about eventually, I swear. But I want to go back to the heady days of two weeks ago, when the Quebec Court of Appeal made a ruling against eBay that essentially makes my job drafting Terms of Use a complete waste of time. That’ll teach me to charge people hundreds of dollars an hour for it.

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