Posts by tag

tpms

30 posts

Legends and reality about the 1996 WIPO Treaties in the light of certain comments on Bill C-32

I.  INTRODUCTION

It was at a copyright seminar abroad that I learned about the publication of Bill C-32 by which the Canadian government intends to adapt the copyright legislation to the digital on-line environment. By the time I arrived home, some of my European colleagues, with whom we usually exchange information, had sent me the links to various blog posts that were trying to offer a first assessment of the new Bill. Some of them contained objective analysis pointing out both the commendable elements of the draft provisions and those where further improvements were found desirable, while others seemed to reflect continued opposition to the government’s intention to modernize the copyright norms the way required by the international treaties and the emerging international standards.…

View Post
Share

The Owens analysis of the Canadian copyright consultations: what are the implications?

Earlier this week, Richard Owens, the past chair of the board of directors of the University of Toronto Innovations Foundation, a member of the board and former Executive Director of the Centre for Innovation and Policy at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, and an adjunct professor of copyright and technology law at the University of Toronto, published a critical analysis of last summer’s copyright consultation. In his paper, Noises Heard: Canada’s Recent Online Copyright Consultation Process: Teachings and Cautions, he concluded that the consultation “was systematically abused by a clandestine group of mod-chip distributors, foreign websites administrators and international BitTorrent users”. …

View Post
Share

ITIF Report: Strategies for Reducing Digital Piracy

Earlier this month, The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) published a paper called Steal These Policies: Strategies for Reducing Digital Piracy. The aim of the paper is to advance a policy in which illegal sources of digital content is reduced while legal content becomes more accessible. The executive summary provides the following overview of the problem as follows:

“The rise of broadband Internet access and cheap storage, along with the growth of digital content, has enabled digital pi­racy to flourish around the world.…

View Post
Share

Only once more – and then Marry Christmas and Happy New Year to everybody, including Professor Geist and his devoted followers: the 1996 WIPO Diplomatic Conference, the WIPO Treaties and the balance of interests

Christmas is two days away; I have to concentrate on my eight grandchildren. I am really not in the mood to deal with copyright, and I do not want to read books, articles and blogs about it this year anymore. However, a colleague of mine in Germany (he may not have been in full Christmas mood yet like me) sent me an e-mail asking me to correct somebody’s allegations which he has found obviously untrue (in fact he has used certain adjectives to describe his opinion about those allegations, which, however, I – sticking on the spirit of what is called, at least in my country, the holiday of love – definitely do not want to quote).…

View Post
Share

Dr. Ficsor is right; Prof. Geist is wrong about the WIPO Internet Treaties

Earlier this week, Dr. Ficsor posted a blog inviting Canada to join the international community by ratifying the WIPO Internet Treaties. Dr. Ficsor is an internationally revered copyright scholar and professor and the former Assistant Director General of WIPO. As his posting pointed out, he was also responsible for organizing the preparatory work of the two Treaties, for the 1996 Diplomatic Conference adopting them, and for the first efforts to achieve their adequate implementation, There is no one on the planet who knows more about the treaties or what was intended by them than him.…

View Post
Share

Fear Mongering and Misinformation Used to Slag ACTA

Last week saw a lot of digital ink spilled over speculation about what the Internet Chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is going to contain.  Some opponents of ACTA including Prof. Geist helped to leak the contents of a two page confidential memorandum that contained a written account of an oral report on what was still being negotiated.[i]

Based on this two page preliminary document, ACTA opponents began a frenzied propaganda campaign against ACTA.  Prof. Geist led the feverish attack writing articles, blogs, tweets, giving a speech in Washington, and press and radio interviews.…

View Post
Share
Barry Sookman
This site is about technology, copyright, artificial intelligence, and privacy law.