Lawyer Offers to Help Media Fight Harper Gov't Copyright Changes

A prominent law professor says he considers a Conservative plan to allow political parties to expropriate news footage for advertising to be such an abuse of power, he's willing to offer his services to media pro bono to fight any attempts to pass such legislation.

Earlier this month, documents leaked to the media showed the Conservative party is considering adding legislation to an omnibus bill that would enable political parties -- and only political parties -- to use news footage in partisan ads without permission or financial compensation to the producers.

Harper Wants Two Classes of Free Speech

Reports surfaced last week that the federal government plans to introduce a new copyright exception for political advertising within a forthcoming budget bill. The provision would allow politicians and political parties to use news content in their political advertising without prior permission.

While the revelations sparked an angry outcry from media organizations and political opponents, the real problem is the potential for copyright to stifle legitimate speech. Political speech -- even noxious attack ads -- surely qualifies as important speech that merits protection. Unfortunately, the government plans to create two classes of rights when it comes to political speech: one for politicians and political parties, and the other for everyone else.

Our money for attack ads – how low can the Harper Conservatives go?

Just when you thought the Harper Conservatives could stoop no lower with their attack ads against Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, they discovered something even more base.

Household mailings, paid for by taxpayers, are supposed to communicate information from MPs to constituents about doings in government. Every MP, of course, puts her or his spin on things because, after all, they’re politicians. But household mailings often contain straightforward information about which government office a constituent should phone, how to apply for government programs, or what this or that piece of legislation means.

The copyright bill and the chocolate bar loophole

Seven years ago an importer narrowly won a Supreme Court decision that allowed it to continue bringing Toblerone chocolate bars into Canada. Since then, parallel importers have operated in a legal grey zone, something that will continue with the passage of the government’s copyright and trademark bill C-8, copyright lawyers say.  

Parallel importing is the practice of buying legitimate goods in a country where they are sold at a relatively low cost, and importing them into a country—in this case, Canada—where their official distributors charge more.

How Canada’s new copyright rules could make your Internet more expensive, censored, and policed

You’ve no doubt heard about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) by now: an international agreement involving 12 nations whose economic output make up 40% of the world’s GDP and 26% of the world’s trade activity. In other words, it’s kind of a big deal.

While the TPP’s international copyright provisions have already come under fire for undermining the free and open Internet, here in Canada our own evolving copyright regime could also hinder our Internet freedom and privacy.

When Canada’s Copyright Modernization Act came into effect, it was heralded as an example of sound and balanced lawmaking - one that took into account Canada’s increasingly digitized cultural and economic landscape. Also known as Bill C-11, it broadened the scope for fair dealing - meaning that it would be considered legal to use copyrighted works for “fair dealing for the purpose of research, private study, education, parody or satire does not infringe copyright.”

This Copyright Bill Could Help Small Business Owners, Girl Talk, Service Members, and the Blind

The last time Congress tried to pass major copyright reforms, 2011's Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA), it pissed off just about every corner of the internet, from Google to Wikipedia to the Teen Witch Fan Club. SOPA and PIPA critics certainly wanted an update to America's rusty copyright laws, just not one that trampled on free speech in the name of catching criminals.

The bipartisan Unlocking Technology Act of 2013, introduced by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) on May 8, may be the compromise that privacy advocates have long desired. Instead of giving law enforcement more power to crack down on internet users, the bill protects law-abiding Americans who modify the cellphones, computers, and software that they own—a proposal that could help everyone from DJs to the visually impaired. There's just one problem: The two giant entertainment industry lobbying groups that backed SOPA—the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)—might not back Lofgren's bill.

More on Canada's new counterfeiting bill: ACTA 'through the back door'?

This month, the Council of Canadians put out a media release on Harper's new anti-counterfeiting legislation (Bill C-56), asking why Canada would kowtow to the U.S. or EU on this issue considering how much global opposition there is to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Only one of the 11 countries to sign ACTA has ratified (Japan) and it was declared dead last summer when the European Parliament voted against it.

"Is Bill C-56 not simply a way to support ACTA through the back door?" asked NDP MP Charmaine Borg in the House of Commons on March 4. Industry Minister Christian Paradis replied that the legislation is necessary to keep Canadians safe from counterfeit goods crossing the border, and that the legislation needed modernizing. But is it necessary or is it excessive? Reports over the past weeks explain the proposed copyright enforcement changes in more detail.

What's Fake about Canada's Anti-Counterfeiting Bill

With only limited fanfare, earlier this month Industry Minister Christian Paradis introduced Bill C-56, the Combating Counterfeit Products Act. Since no one supports counterfeit products -- there are legitimate concerns associated with health and safety -- measures designed to address the issue would presumably enjoy public and all-party support. Yet within days of its introduction, the bill was the target of attacks from both opposition parties and the public.

The NDP raised the issue during Question Period in the House of Commons, accusing the government of trying to implement the widely discredited Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) "through the backdoor." The public also picked up on the issue, noting that the bill appears to be less about protecting Canadians and more about caving to U.S. pressure (the U.S. called on Canada to implement ACTA on the same day the bill was tabled).

Bill C-56: Critics Say Canada Folding To U.S. Demands In Resurrecting ACTA

The Harper government has introduced a bill to bring Canadian law in line with a controversial copyright treaty that many critics thought was dead.

Critics fear the bill and the treaty it’s meant to enforce will turn Canadian customs officers into de facto enforcers of copyright law, empowered to seize suspected copyright-infringing materials without judicial oversight.

Parliament should clarify ‘fair dealing’ provision in copyright act

One of the more contentious pieces of legislation currently wending its way toward adoption in Parliament is Bill C-11, the Copyright Modernization Act. The bill’s formidable goal of jointly protecting the rights of creators and those of consumers in the digital age has led to a polarized debate, and those who enter it are often characterized in unflattering terms by their opponents. There is one disputed clause, though, which has less to do with ideology than with good law-making.

Parliament passes new Copyright law; Geist says feds caved to U.S. on digital locks

Copyright legislation in Canada has finally been updated after two governments, four bills, and 15 years of debate, and while it’s long overdue and sorely needed, federal legislators could have done better, says Canada’s leading expert on copyright issues who criticized the federal government for caving to the United States on digital locks.

“You can’t overlook digital locks,” said University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist. “There’s no way to sugarcoat the fact that I think it represents both bad policy and it runs counter to what the government heard from tens of thousands of Canadians, and from the majority of the witnesses and was easily fixable, so it’s a huge disappointment that it wasn’t. That said, there is also I think a lot of good in this legislation. Those that would simply tar the bill as being awful, I think aren’t giving it a full fair read.”

On Copyright, Politicians Just Don't Understand

If elected representatives can't be trusted to legislate fair copyright laws, then it falls to the public to show them the error of their ways.

Widespread protests in support of a free internet began in 2000, in response to the shutdown of Napster, a music-focused file-sharing service that was accused of copyright infringement. Since that time, such protests have been growing – and growing significantly – with every iteration.

Each new wave of protest against clueless politicians who give our freedoms of speech to corporate sponsors completely eclipses the previous one, and this year, PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act), SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), and ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Act) prompted the biggest demonstrations yet, as North Americans and Europeans stood up for their digital rights.

With every new wave, more people become aware of the real issues at hand – that the battle is over our fundamental civil liberties and not over some dinosaur industry’s imaginary right to profit.

I’m already looking forward to the next protest, which will be bigger than the Jan. 18 SOPA/PIPA blackout. In its wake, copyright-industry lobbyists will walk about confused, wondering what has happened.

And let there be no doubt – following the next big protest, there will be new misguided attempts at legislation, and equally powerful responses from the citizenry.

Copyright bill returns with changes for final House vote

A bill that will update Canada's copyright laws is heading back to the House of Commons with amendments as early as Thursday morning — but without the changes opposition MPs had hoped for.

That puts bill C-11 one step closer to becoming law, with two remaining votes in the House before it moves to the Senate.

Glenn Thibeault, the chair of the special committee that looked at the legislation, said he plans to present the report as soon as possible, which would be Thursday when House business begins. The committee finished its clause-by-clause reading of the bill Tuesday, accepting eight changes from government MPs but defeating all amendments suggested by the NDP and Liberals.

Steve Anderson, national co-ordinator of Openmedia.ca, a national campaign for open and low-cost internet, says the bill is a win for consumers over all, but the group is still concerned about how the legislation handles so-called digital locks on copyrighted content. C-11 makes no provisions to allow consumers to break digital locks on material they've bought.

Moore defends Canada's 'different path' on copyright bill

Canada’s copyright legislation is taking a very different path from controversial U.S. legislation that drew widespread protests, Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore said Wednesday.

In an interview with CBC News the week a special committee set up its schedule for examining the bill, Moore said the government has rejected the aggressive approach the American government tried to take with the Stop Online Piracy Act.

Observers have said they’re not opposed to much of bill C-11, the act to amend the copyright act, but they fear lobbying could convince the Canadian government to take a more aggressive approach.

"This is a very different path," Moore said, pointing out each country has different consumer and cultural pressures affecting its legislation. "We’ve rejected the American style approaches on massive parts of our legislation."

"SOPA was about an international pursuit of piracy with pretty aggressive means that our government is not considering in our copyright bill."

One example, he said, is that the Canadian legislation would bring in "notice and notice," where an internet provider would notify rights infringers on behalf of the content creator. The U.S. bill has "notice and takedown," where a creator complains and the service automatically removes the content.

Are Canadians ready to fight back on bill C-11?

Could “the protester,” 2011′s “person of the year” according to Time magazine, be heading for a second title reign in 2012? If the first month and a half of this year is any indication, it sure looks like it.

This time around, it’s a little different. In 2011, the numerous uprisings in several parts of the Middle East combined with wide-scale Occupy protests into a year of democratic unrest. People around the world were angry with their respective governments for one reason or another and they were no longer shy about showing it.

This year, so far, protesters have been similarly angry, but it has been about something considerably more prosaic than fundamental democracy: copyright.

There was, of course, the mid-January protest in the U.S. against the Stop Online Piracy Act and related Protect Intellectual Property Act. On Jan. 18, millions of people signed online petitions against the bills, which would have given the government and entertainment companies sweeping powers to censor the Internet. The protests ultimately got the legislation killed, at least for now.

No sooner did the SOPA furor die down than anger over the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement sprung up. Poland recently saw thousands of protestors take to the streets to express dismay over their country’s signing of the international copyright treaty, which they said has been negotiated for years in secrecy. The country has since reversed plans to ratify ACTA, with several other countries–Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia–following suit.

Canadians Speak Out Against Digital Locks. But Who's Listening?

The second reading debate on Bill C-11 will conclude today with the bill headed to committee for further hearings and possible amendment.

Yesterday, the Globe published an opinion piece by Peter Nowak that juxtaposes the widespread consultation on copyright reform in Canada with digital lock provisions that "wilfully ignores" public opinion.

Nowak notes how the U.S. ultimately responded to public concern in stopping SOPA, while the same appears to be happening in Europe as protests over the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement continue to grow (there are continent-wide protests planned for February 11th).

One of my posts this week focused on concerns that Industry Minister Christian Paradis has said he cannot speculate on how Bill C-11's digital lock rules will be enforced. The post identifies numerous examples of how the rules could harm creators, students, researchers, consumers, and even the visually impaired (further background information on Bill C-11 here and here). Yet these concerns are not new and have been raised for several years. Indeed, it is instructive to see how the public concern over the digital lock rules and now possible inclusion of SOPA-style amendments has mushroomed over the years.

Debate On Copyright Bill To Be Limited

The Conservatives succeeded Wednesday in passing another motion to limit debate, this time on second reading of the copyright reform bill.

Government House Leader Peter Van Loan moved a time allocation motion on the copyright reform bill Wednesday that will limit remaining debate at second reading to two more days.

Following that debate and a vote, the bill will go to a committee for further study.

"We want to get this done and it's time the opposition stop delaying," Heritage Minister James Moore said as debate on the time allocation motion got underway Thursday after question period. He said there will be opportunities for substantive debate at the committee stage and that the government wants to hear proposed amendments from the opposition parties.

The opposition parties, however, complained that the government is "muzzling" debate and stifling democracy with its repeated use of time allocation on its legislation.

Copyright bill debate limited by government

The Conservatives succeeded Wednesday in passing another motion to limit debate, this time on second reading of the copyright reform bill.

Government House Leader Peter Van Loan moved a time allocation motion on the copyright reform bill Wednesday that will limit remaining debate at second reading to two more days.

Following that debate and a vote, the bill will go to a committee for further study.

"We want to get this done and it's time the opposition stop delaying," Heritage Minister James Moore said as debate on the time allocation motion got underway Thursday after question period. He said there will be opportunities for substantive debate at the committee stage and that the government wants to hear proposed amendments from the opposition parties.

The opposition parties, however, complained that the government is "muzzling" debate and stifling democracy with its repeated use of time allocation on its legislation.

The NDP's Joe Comartin said Parliament is being turned into a "farce."

"They are shutting down debate just repeatedly," he said.

When Van Loan served notice Tuesday that the Conservatives intended to limit debate on the copyright bill, he said he tried to reach an agreement with the NDP but the Official Opposition "wouldn't commit to any reasonable, cooperative approach," so he would instead table a time allocation motion.

ACTA Copyright Treaty Sparks Protests In Latest Anti-Piracy Battle

In the United States, a massive Internet protest last week led by Wikipedia and Google drove congressional leaders to place controversial anti-piracy legislation on hold.

But in other parts of the world, another proposal to increase copyright enforcement is gaining momentum, despite protests from opponents concerned about Internet censorship.

On Thursday, the European Union and 22 of its member states signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA -- a major step toward enforcement of the copyright treaty. Eight countries, including the United States, had signed the agreement this past fall.

ACTA has always been controversial because the international negotiations that began in 2007 took place in secret. But now, opponents of the treaty have developed new muscle after witnessing the success of the Internet outcry against the two U.S. bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA).

How Copyright Industries Con Congress

I’ve yet to encounter a technically clueful person who believes the Stop Online Piracy Act will actually do anything to meaningfully reduce—let alone “stop”—online piracy, and so I haven’t bothered writing much about the absurd numbers the bill’s supporters routinely bandy about in hopes of persuading lawmakers that SOPA will be an economic boon and create zillions of jobs. If the proposed solution just won’t work, after all, why bother quibbling about the magnitude of the problem? But then I saw the very astute David Carr’s otherwise excellent column on SOPA’s pitfalls, which took those inflated numbers more or less as gospel. If only because I’m offended to see bad data invoked so routinely and brazenly, on general principle, it’s important to try to set the record straight. The movie and music recording industry have gotten away with using statistics that don’t stand up to the most minimal scrutiny, over and over, for years, to hoodwink both Congress and the general public. Wherever you come down on any particular piece of legislation, this is not how policy should get made in a democracy, and it’s high time they were shamed into cutting it out.

The bogus numbers Carr cites—which I’ll get to in a moment—actually represent a substantial retreat from even more ludicrous statistics the copyright industries long peddled. In my previous life as the Washington editor for the technology news site Ars Technica, I became curious about two implausible sounding claims I kept seeing made over and over—and repeated by prominent U.S. Senators!—in support of more aggressive antipiracy efforts.  Intellectual property infringement was supposedly costing the U.S. economy $200–250 billion per year, and had killed 750,000 American jobs. That certainly sounded dire, but those numbers looked suspiciously high, and I was having trouble figuring out exactly where they had originated. I did finally run them down, and wrote up the results of my investigation in a long piece for Ars. Read the whole thing for the full, farcical story, but here’s the upshot: The $200–250 billion number had originated in a 1991 sidebar in Forbes, but it was not a measurement of the cost of “piracy” to the U.S. economy. It was an unsourced estimate of the total size of the global market in counterfeit goods. Beyond the obvious fact that these numbers are decades old, counterfeiting of physical goods imported in bulk and sold by domestic retail distributors is, rather obviously, a totally different phenomenon with different policy implications from the problem of illicit individual consumer downloads of movies, music, and software. The 750,000 jobs number had originated in a 1986 speech (yes, 1986) by the secretary of commerce estimating that counterfeiting could cost the United States “anywhere from 130,000 to 750,000″ jobs. Nobody in the Commerce Department was able to identify where those figures had come from.