Look, I don’t like praising a public regulator any more than you like reading about me praising a public regulator. Yet when the CRTC strengthens net neutrality in Canada while our friends down south are essentially f*cked on the same subject, you gotta do what you gotta do.
I’m still thinking about what to write!
Sometimes you have have a lot to write about and sometimes you have nothing to write about. This is one of those times. So let’s write about all of it. And none of it.
There was a huge, huge, huge (no really it was huge) internet law case that came out of the Federal Court about a month ago. “If it was so huge, why are you only writing about it now?” you are asking me. Shut up is why.
Do I want to dive into the world of trademarks and have to explain to you how the law of trademarks works? Fuck and no. I hate trademarks with the fire of a thousand suns; that’s almost as much as I hate patents. I am some kind of IP lawyer! But we’ve got an important internet law case out of the BC Court of Appeals that is about trademarks, so I guess I have no choice. Are we having fun yet?
OK I’ll say it, 2016 sucked. Well it was fine for me personally and professionally, but that was one ugly US election and we lost a lot of good people. Thank goodness it’s almost over.
You readers were great though! On behalf of the whole AM.com team, thanks so much for sticking with us and making this law blogging thingy all sorts of fun! As I predict every year, I am sure this internet thingamajig will take off in 2017. Sooner or later that will come true.
Happy holidays!
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.
Green is good! Purple is bad.
You may remember that back in February I announced that yours truly would be writing the country report for Canada for Freedom House‘s annual “Freedom on the Net” report. Yesterday, the work of all the excellent worldwide authors and me was released. I could not be prouder to have participated. My Canada Report is here, but I encourage you to take a look at all the reports, especially those countries where the internet is not free. We have it pretty darn good here in Canada.
My report would not have been possible without a few people, all of whom are way smarter than me. The 2016 report was basically just an update of the two previous years’ reports, written by Michael Geist. Michael’s incredible work in the previous years made my job a piece of cake. My editor at Freedom House Jessica White was a joy to work with and all her corrections and suggestions were right. My old law school friend (now brilliant law professor in Australia) Alana Maurushat recommended me to Freedom House in the first place. I sincerely thank all of them for what they did.
And finally you commentors who gave me your thoughts in that announcement post were a real help as well. While I maybe didn’t use your comments directly, your ideas certainly were in my mind as I wrote. Gracias.
Ooh boy this post was well short on my usual snark and profanity. Internet freedom is too serious an issue I guess. I’ll get back to my usual bullshit in the next post.
Wow! Exciting developments on Canada’s anti-spam front, especially in the last week. Undoubtedly the spammers are quaking in their boots.
“The Commissioner shall, within three months after the end of each financial year, submit to Parliament a report…” doesn’t sound like the basis for an exciting post on privacy in the modern technological age, yet here we are!
Audio! Words! Internet cat fights! This post has it all.
Sure, it has to block a few websites to do it, but isn’t that a small price to pay?
That may be the best headline I’ve ever written. It should technically be “Dog poo + pedophilia + Facebook = $65,000”, but I was scared of what kind of click bait that would be. Thank you, B.C. Supreme Court!
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.
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