Especially important to everyone in Canada – but important to everyone, since copyright and IP are increasingly international issues due to attempts at harmonization (WIPO, for example) – comes this expose by Michael Geist on the undue influence pro-copyright lobbyist organizations have had on Canadian policy documents.
Michael Geist explains the current status of business method patents in Canada where, so far, they have been firmly rejected – unlike in the United States.
Image via Wikipedia
While this sounds like a headline ripped from a newspaper of today, it actually comes from an 1897 article in the New York Times. Enterprising Canadians were selling the sheet music of popular songs via mail to Americans for 5 – 10 cents, undercutting the 20 – 50 cents charged by copyright owners:
“Canadian [...]
An intriguing, far-ranging perspective on scholarly publishing that ties early 3rd century revolutions in scholarly publishing with modern trends towards open access and digital archiving:
Instead of using the noble scroll, Origen decided to take advantage of the page structure of the humble codex. Dividing each of two facing pages into three columns each, he began [...]
JURIST – Paper Chase: Canada judge rules emergency wiretap law unconstitutional:
British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Barry Davies has ruled that Section 184.4 of the Canadian Criminal Code, which allows law enforcement officers to electronically intercept private communications in ‘exceptional circumstances’ without court authorization, is unconstitutional because it violates ‘the fundamental freedom to be free [...]
National Post:
The mint is demanding the city pay $47,680 for using a picture of the “tails” side of a Canadian penny in its brochures, banners and advertisements for the campaign, aimed at persuading Ottawa to set aside one cent of every six collected under the goods and services tax (GST) for municipalities. The mint is [...]
I am very impressed by CanLII – Canadian Legal Information Institute search service: “CanLII is a non-profit organization managed by the Federation of Law Societies of Canada. CanLII’s goal is to make Canadian law accessible for free on the Internet.” The service is similar to the U.S.-centric Westlaw or Lexis-Nexis, although limited to only Canadian [...]
A new method of computer-based tracking has recently emerged: wifi. A company has been sending trucks all over the U.S. and Canada mapping access points, addresses and names, and now claims that they have technology to say where you are in relation to other people based on what access points your computer can see nearby. [...]
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