digital locks Archives - Barry Sookman

My remarks to the Senate Committee studying Bill C-11

The following are my opening remarks to the Senate Committee studying Bill C-11 earlier today. The link to the webcast can be found here.

I would like to thank the committee for inviting me to appear today to provide input on Bill C-11.

Before starting my remarks, I would like to give you some background about myself.

I am a senior partner with the law firm McCarthy Tétrault.
I am an adjunct professor at Osgoode Hall Law School where I teach IP law.

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Michael Geist: A question of values

With Bill C-11, the Copyright Modernization Act, on its way to clause by clause review Canadians have a chance to think about what values they want copyright to reflect. Canadians are being bombarded with a dizzying array of information about amendments that have been proposed including amendments related to enablement, statutory damages, TPMs and fair dealing. Much of the information is inaccurate and emotionally super-charged to garner as much visceral reaction as possible. A significant portion of it originates from Internet activist Michael Geist and is repeated throughout the blogosphere and in the traditional news media, usually with no attempt at analysis.…

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Reining in the rhetoric on copyright reform

This blog post is a longer version of the article entitled This Bill is no SOPA published in the Financial Post today.

While recent attempts by the usual suspects making hysterical predictions about copyright reform in Canada have been ratcheted up yet again, this time the claims are so outrageous that they can perhaps best be described as having “jumped the shark”. Canadians are being told that Bill C-11, an act to amend Canada’s outdated copyright law, could be used to shut down popular web sites like YouTube, fundamentally change the Internet, sabotage online freedoms, and hog-tie innovators.…

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Some observations on Bill C-11: The Copyright Modernization Act

Last Thursday the Government of Canada introduced into the House of Commons Bill C-11, an Act to Amend the Copyright Act. In a press release describing the Bill, Heritage Minister James Moore and Industry Minister Christian Paradis, stated that the Bill will ensure that Canada’s copyright laws “are modern, flexible, and in line with current international standards” and will “protect and help create jobs, promote innovation, and attract new investment to Canada.”

In the press conference announcing the Bill at the Ottawa office of software producer bitHeads Inc.,…

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C-32 and the BlackBerry PlayBook: A reply to Michael Geist

Michael Geist’s recent blog post “The PlayBook Tax: Why the Conservative’s Copyright Plans Create a Hidden Cost for RIM’s PlayBook” makes the claim that “the Conservative plan for copyright reform (as found in Bill C-32) establishes a significant barrier that could force many consumers to pay hundreds in additional costs in order to switch their content from existing devices” to RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook. He calls this a “PlayBook tax” and claims switching costs apply to “any digital content with a digital lock”.…

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The Liberal Digital Canada Plan and Copyright

Earlier today, Marc Garneau and guest commentators Michael Geist and Steve Anderson had a live online chat about the Liberal Digital Canada Plan. A transcription of the chat is available here.

The Liberal Digital Plan says the following about copyright:

Fair balance Between Creators and Consumers.

Digital technology offers many new opportunities, but enjoying content without compensating its creators shouldn’t be among them. At the same time, consumers should have freedom for personal use of digital content they rightfully possess.

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Teachings from the Blizzard WoW case

Last week the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals released its decision in the MDY INDUSTRIES, LLC v BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT, INC case.

The case involved Blizzard, the creator of World of Warcraft (“WoW”), a popular multiplayer online role-playing game in which players interact in a virtual world while advancing through the game’s 70 levels. MDY developed and sold Glider, a software program that automatically plays the early levels of WoW for players. MDY had brought an action for a declaratory judgment to establish that its Glider sales did not infringe Blizzard’s copyright or other rights.…

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An FAQ on TPMs, Copyright and Bill C-32

This blog post is based on a transcription of the talk I gave last week at the Insight Conference on Rights and Copyright: Bringing Canada into the 21st Century. * I was on a panel with Michael Geist in which we both presented on the topic of “Bill C-32: Legal Protection for TPMs”. The slides I used with my presentation have already been posted here. For convenience they are also at the end of my remarks.

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Welcome. I hope everyone is having a good day so far.…

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Key issues on the legal protection for TPMs under Bill C-32

There has been considerable debate about the appropriate scope for legal protection of TPMs under Bill C-32. I dealt with this issue in a speech I gave today at the Insight Conference: RIGHTS and COPYRIGHT, Bringing Canada into the 21st Century.

The questions I discussed were the following:

Does Bill C-32 properly implement the WIPO Treaties consistent with approaches used by Canada’s trading partners?
Does Bill C-32 permit circumvention of TPMs to permit copying for fair dealing, educational and other purposes?

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Separating copyright fiction from facts about C-32’s TPM provisions

Earlier this week Prof. Geist wrote an opinion piece in the Toronto Star in which he purported to separate “copyright facts from fiction”. His opinion piece, Separating copyright facts from fiction, followed by another blog post this week, The False Link Between Locks and Levies, are two in a series of blog posts and opinion pieces written by him recently that purport to expose as inaccurate statements made about Bill C-32 by various individuals and organizations. See: Responding to ACTRA: Group Calls C-32 a “Disaster” and Proposes Six Part Fix; Copyright Fear Mongering Hits a New High: Writers Groups Post Their C-32 Brief; In Search of A Compromise on Copyright; EU: ACTA Digital Lock Rules Don’t Cover Access Controls.…

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