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  • Obama-Biden transition site Change.gov now under a Creative Commons license Change.gov, the website of US president-elect Barack Obama’s transition team, has undergone some important and exciting changes over the past few days. Among them is the site’s new copyright notice, which expresses that the bulk of change.gov is published under the most permissive of Creative Commons copyright licenses - CC BY. Except where otherwise noted, content [...]
  • Must-read: The Public Domain Creative Commons Board Chair James Boyle’s new book is out — The Public Domain: Enclosing of the Commons of the Mind, published by Yale University Press. Read and comment online or download and share the the PDF under a CC BY-NC-SA license. Buy a hardcopy. The Public Domain cover, evolved from excellent contest entries. We [...]
  • Second Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase After the great success of the first Ubuntu FreeCulture Showcase just 4 months ago the great people at Ubuntu have opened up the door for submissions for the latest Showcase. The Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase is a way to show off the high-quality creativeness of the Free/Open Source community. The winners of the competition are [...]
  • Non-Commercial study questionnaire As previously announced, Creative Commons is studying how people understand the term “noncommercial use”. At this stage of research, we are reaching out to the Creative Commons community and to anyone else interested in public copyright licenses – would you please take a few minutes to participate in our study by responding to this questionnaire? [...]
  • Reminder: December Technology Summit Registration - Now with Student Rates Just a quick reminder that registration is still open for the December Technology Summit taking place in Cambridge, MA.  The program looks like a great set of presentations about technology that touches CC: RDFa, digital copyright registries, embedded metadata and more. Registration is available online and we’ve added student rates at about half the normal rate: [...]
  • Pratham Books joins the Commons Pratham Books is a nonprofit publisher started by the Pratham Education Initiative, which, since 1994, has been working to secure primary education for every child in India. “Pratham Books is a not-for-profit trust that seeks to publish high-quality books for children at a affordable cost in multiple Indian languages. Pratham Books is trying to create [...]
  • Eighth Annual Media That Matters Film Festival DVDs on Sale The Media that Matters 8th Annual Festival DVDs have officially gone on sale. There are a number of facts that make these DVDs exceptional in the festival and documentary world: They use CC’s BY-NC-ND license to encourage educational reuse and sharing of the material. The DVDs are not region encoded or encrypted. This means you are free [...]
  • Announcing December’s CC Salon NYC / 6th Birthday Party Creative Commons turns 6 in mid-December, and we’ll be celebrating Salon style (as has been the tradition in NYC for CC’s birthdays in years past) at The Open Planning Project once again on December 16th with a Salon and free beer. Since its our birthday there will be some special birthday surprises as well. December’s [...]
  • State Shirt Call for Remixes/Samples and Shannon Plays Live Over a year and a half ago the ccMixter community decided to stop having formal remix contests in part because in a CC context, the traditional format seemed outdated. In a typical remix contest an artist would post the stems to one song, retaining all the rights to the samples as well as the remixes [...]
  • CC + MIT + Berkman Center for Internet & Society On Dec. 12th, 2008, CC will be pairing up with two of the most influential and innovative institutions in the “open” movement: MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. For those of you interested in the tech side of Creative Commons, MIT’s CSAIL is hosting CC’s second [...]
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    Michael Geist Blog
    Michael Geist - Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law

  • Knopf on IP and the Economy Howard Knopf has a terrific post on how Canada could use IP and IP policy to address concerns with the economy.
  • Canada Backpedals On Data Sharing Agreement With U.S. The Canadian Press reports that the Canadian government has quietly dropped plans to let the United States house a database of personal information about Canadians who hold special driver's licences aimed at better securing the border. The move follows vocal criticism from federal and provincial privacy commissioners, who warned earlier this year the scheme could open the door to abuse of the sensitive data.
  • Thousands Complain To CRTC About Do-Not-Call List The CBC reports that the CRTC has received thousands of complaints about the do-not-call list and the continuation of unwanted telemarketing calls.
  • Why Copyright?: Canadian Voices on Copyright Law

    One year ago today, I launched the Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook group.  The past twelve months have seen thousands of Canadians speak out on copyright reform with the issue capturing political and public attention as never before.   Today, I am delighted to post a Why Copyright? Canadian Voices on Copyright Law, a 47 minute documentary film that examines why copyright has emerged as such as an important issue in Canada. The film, which I produced together with Daniel Albahary, features a wide range of Canadian voices - artists like Gordon Duggan of Appropriation Art; writers like award winning science fiction author Karl Schroeder; musicians like Wide Mouth Mason's Safwan Javed; business people like Nettwerk Record's Terry McBride, Lulu.com's Bob Young, and Skylink Technologies' Philip Tsui; government appointees like Privacy Commissioner of Canada Jennifer Stoddart and Ian E. Wilson, the Chief Librarian of Canada; and many, many more.

    The film is available in multiple ways at newly designed page located at copyrightvoices.ca.  In addition to the version posted on Blip.tv that is embedded below, there is an annotated version on Youtube, a version open to sub-titling at Dot-Sub, and a full DVD version available for download using BitTorrent.  Forty-seven minutes is a long time to invest in a film of this kind, but I'm hopeful that people will find the perspectives interesting and that they may decide to lend their voice as well - by remixing the film (it is creative commons licensed), adding their voice by posting a video response at YouTube, or by speaking out for fair copyright in Canada.


  • Saskatchewan Promises Universal Broadband Access The Saskatchewan government has pledged to make broadband universally accessbile within three years.  The government has promised millions of dollars to improve its rural telecommunications infrastructure.
  • Crookes Appeals B.C. Linking Decision P2PNet.net reports that Wayne Crookes has appealed a recent B.C. decision that addressed the liability for linking to allegedly defamatory content.
  • CBC's Search Engine on Canada's Digital Isolation CBC's Search Engine laments the current state of digital Canada.
  • McGuinty Calls for Facebook-Based Consultation on License Restrictions Earlier this fall, I wrote a column on the CRTC's online consultation on new media, commending the CRTC for conducting the consultation but concluding that it takes more than "if you build it, they will come" approach."  I argued that improving on that performance would require government to actually conduct some of its consultations on the various sites and social networks that are already debating the issue.

    Interestingly, it appears that Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is considering doing just that in response to mounting opposition to proposed restrictions on drivers' licences.  The proposals have galvanized huge interest on Facebook, with one group topping 115,000 members.  McGuinty has acknowledged that conventional public hearings will not address the issue since most younger people will not come to legislative meetings.  Instead, the Premier says "I think we need to find a way to get on Facebook. I think we need to find a way to engage in a dialogue in a social network where they are."  That is exactly right, though a cynic might note (as does the Globe article) that a starting point would be for the government to stop blocking its employees from accessing the hugely popular social network.
  • Garneau on Canadian Technology Policy CBC features an interview with Marc Garneau, new Liberal MP and former head of the Canada Space Agency.  Garneau, the Liberal science and technology critic, acknowledges that "there were a surprising number of people who contacted me who had questions and reservations about the current bill [C-61]."
  • Exclaim on the Canadian Music Business in 2008 Exclaim reviews the current state of the Canadian music industry, lamenting the support for Bill C-61 from CRIA and CIRPA.
  • Brunet on the CRTC Net Throttling Decision Alain Brunet comments on last week's CRTC decision involving Bell and CAIP.
  • U.S. Court Hits Canadian Spammer With $873 Million Damage Award A U.S. court has awarded Facebook $873 million in damages arising from spam on the popular social networking site.  The target of the suit is Adam Guerbuez and Atlantis Blue Capital of Montreal.  The award is the largest ever under the U.S. Can-Spam Act.  While it is unlikely that Facebook will receive payment, the decision highlights yet again how Canada has fallen woefully behind many other countries in the battle against spam.  There are Canadian-based spamming organizations, yet no effective law in Canada to address the issue.  Years after the National Task Force on Spam recommended legislation for Canada, no government has introduced anti-spam legislation, forcing organizations like Facebook to turn to U.S. courts to deal with a problem that originates in Canada.  Moreover, despite including anti-spam legislation in its election platform, the issue was nowhere to be found in last week's Speech from the Throne.
  • Report Recommends Repealing Hate Speech Provision The National Post reports that an independent report by Professor Richard Moon has recommended that the controversial hate speech provision in the Human Rights Act be repealed.  The report was commissioned by the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
  • CRTC Decision Not the Final Word On Net Neutrality My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) discusses last week's CRTC decision in the CAIP v. Bell case.  Echoing my remarks immediately after the decision, I argue in the column that the decision is not the final word on net neutrality in Canada, but rather the first word on it. 


  • EdTech Posse Podcast on Copyright I recently spent about an hour talking about copyright for the EdTech Posse podcast.

    • Digital Copyright Canada - All Canadian Citizens are "Rights Holders"!
    This forum was started in Aug 2001 to raise the level of debate about Digital Copyright revision in Canada. We work to ensure that the views of all citizens including creators and their audiences are considered. Thus far the federal government has allowed lobbiests for the increasingly outdated intermediaries to dominate discussions. Read about this forum for more details and site description.

  • The Future of Music in a Digital World

    Just a FYI for those in Toronto on this event.

    November 24, 2008 - 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm
    Jane Mallett Theatre at StLC
    Admission is free

    Panelists:

    Graham Henderson: president of the Canadian Recording Industry Association

    Don Quarles: executive director of the Songwriters Association of Canada

    Will Strickland: president of the Urban Music Association of Canada

    Byron Kent Wongis a Toronto and Los Angeles-based media producer, musician and entrepreneur

    read more

  • Throwing water at a drowning person

    Copyright is to creativity like water is to humans: too little and you dehydrate and die, too much and you drown and die. At this current point in the evolution of copyright law, some of the worse problems we are observing -- in my mind including the massive amount of online infringement of multimedia -- is as a result of "too much" copyright, not "too little".

    And in response to this dynamic, the Conservative Party had this to say in their Speech from the Throne earlier today:

    Our Government will proceed with legislation to modernize Canada’s copyright laws and ensure stronger protection for intellectual property.

    read more

  • Software patents and disclosure

    Techdirt has a useful article about how useful software patents actually are.

    He points out that :
    - companies will usually only patent stuff that would get disclosed anyway, relying on trade secret protection for the rest;
    - Microsoft tells their employees to "never search, view, or speculate about patents", partly due to the worries over "willful infringement" and partly because you wouldn't learn anything from them anyway.

    read more

  • Article on copyright reform in the Globe.

    An Article on the Globe's web site by WOJCIECH GRYC AND JESSE HELMER seems to be calling for a balanced approch to copyright. It also is sugesting that folks contact their MP.

    article

  • Why Copyright? Canadian Voices on Copyright Law - Trailer



    A trailer for the upcoming documentary was posted to Michael Geist's YouTube channel.

    read more

  • Google Inc. Terminates Advertising Agreement with Yahoo! Inc. in Canada

    Read full press release from the Competition Bureau:

    Yahoo! Inc. and Google Inc. have confirmed that they are abandoning a proposed search advertising agreement in Canada, resolving any potential Competition Bureau concerns about the impact of this proposed deal on Internet search advertising in Canada.

  • Historical time.

    I need to comment on this historical time, with the USA electing President Barack Hussein Obama II. I believe it marks an important point in the USA's history in particular, but also in the world. The relationship between the US and the world community has been strained, and I think that President Obama has some unique qualities to try to improve that relationship.

    read more

  • Investigations and Judicial review-

    An article by Pauline Tam in todays Ottawa Citizen seems to be pressing for a general relaxation of the requirments for search warrant.

    The article having the title of "Fake IDs used to defraud health system" discusses the efforts made to locate folks who use Canada's Health care system, ththough they are not entitled to benifits from the system. However the article seems to also attempt to persuade the reader that Canada's Privacy Laws are so strong, that they hamstring attempts by Law enforcement to investigate this sort of case.

    read more

  • Software and business method patents take a hit

    A blog article by Dana Blankenhorn provides some links, including to Groklaw. I'm curious what other people have been reading, and whether they think this could be the beginning of the end of information/mental process patents?

    Question: If software is distributed unbundled with any specific hardware (ie: "not tied to any machine"), then are the methods it implements patentable? I have no problem with a patent regime that applies to those shipping hardware/software bundles, but not to those simply shipping/sharing software. This would in my mind largely solve the incompatibility between software patents and FLOSS.

    read more

  • 100 Free Open Courseware Classes About Open Source Everything

    I was emailed this morning about an article by Jessica Merritt listing 100 different resources for learning about FLOSS.

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