La Cour suprême a rendu sa décision dans Monsanto Canada Inc. c. Schmeiser. J’ai pas eu le temps de lire autre chose qu ele résumé, mais Monsanto a gagné: le brevet sur la cellule végétale et le gène modifié sont valides (contrairement a un brevet sur une plante comme tel). Sauf que la culture de plantes contenant cellules et gènes modifiés, non brevetables comme tel, ne bénéficent pas de la protection du brevet.

Wired

Globe and Mail

Radio Can

Slashdot

Alors c’était le ILaw 2004 la semaine dernière. Je me suis un peu abstenu de suivre ca live (pas besoin de tourner le fer dans la plaie) mais Frank a un bon sommaire pour les intéressés.

Digital Copyright a une pétition (contexte et détails) pour faire entendre un « wô les moteurs » au parlement dans le cadre de la réforme du droit d’auteur au Canada.

[Via User Friendly (oui oui, pour vrai)]

Moi je suis en Inde comme ça et j’ai pas le temps de lire mes niouzes et personne me dit que la Cour suprême a finalement rendu CCH Canadian Ltd. v. Law Society of Upper Canada, 2004 SCC 13; faut que je tombe sur une citation pour allumer.

Commentaire chez Gowlings (merci Brightblue).

Deux articles aujourd’hui qui clament que le télécharment est légal selon la dernière décision de la Cour Fédérale. N’ayant pas encore mis la main sur la véritable décision, je vais me retenir de commenter.

Les articles de cyberpresse sont ici et ici

Un petit extrait de la décision semble révélateur toutefois de son contenu: Je ne vois pas vraiment de différence entre une bibliothèque qui placerait un photocopieur dans une pièce remplie d’ouvrages protégés en vertu de la loi sur le droit d’auteur et un ordinateur qui place une copie personnelle sur un répertoire partagé, relié à un site d’échange de fichiers» (J. von Fickenstein)

On parie combien que ce jugement se retrouve en appel ?

Go to Lex Informatica for your dose of Canadian information technology law updates.

And the Toronto Star mentions CanFLI, the Canadian File-Sharing Legal Information Network, a website dedicated to informing the public « about Canadian copyright law, privacy law, and the procedure of civil actions ». They are also coordinating legal support for the 29 people IP addresses named by CRIA in its lawsuits against Canadian music uploaders.

Those were the words from Judge Noonan of the 9th Circuit while listening to the oral argument from one of the plaintiff’s lawyers, Cary Ramos, in the MGM v. Groskter case. The judge seemed annoyed by Ramos’ continuous use of « abusive language », using words like « pirating, stealing, trafficking, counterfeit and theft » to describe the Grokster network. Ha! For anyone interested in listening to the full version, EFF has it on their site. (The juicy quote is at the 25th minute of the file. If you have an hour, it’s worth a listen. EFF’s Fred von Lohmann’s argument was very smooth and well delivered.)

The Globe and Mail reports that so far, at least one ISP, Shaw Communications Inc., has decided to fight the Canadian Recording Industry Association on its request to hand over information in regards to some of its customers who allegedly uploaded music. Case goes to court Monday.

Un paquet de modèles de contrats sur onecle.com. Sympa pour palier à un manque d’inspiration.

Ils sont classés par types de contrats ou par compagnies.

[via Macbidouille]

Well, it’s been more than a month since the Copyright Board came out with its decision Private Copying III. For the sake of simplicity and to make future reference to the decision easier, I am putting up a little summary of the decision for those who are interested in its general content. We are bound to hear A LOT on it in the following months, so I thought that a summary would be helpful in any future discussions.

One aspect of this decision struck me in particular. The majority of the Board seems to have based much of the justifications for maintaining status quo of the current levy rates on the grounds of “uncertainties”. In fact, one has the feeling that the many of the rates established in the tariff was done by a lack of information. Very shaky ground I would say. For example, the Board agreed that individual consumers might use CD-Rs more than CD-RWs for the purpose of recording music, thus it would make sense to establish two different rates for these two media. However, the Board is “unable to update the valuation model” due to “uncertainties surrounding important figures”. Yet, this same kind of “uncertainty” didn’t stop the majority of the Board (agreed by the dissident) from assigning some rather poorly justified and “out there” levy rates to non-removable memories embedded in digital audio recorders. Another example would be the Board’s view on the effects of the black market (illegal) and the grey market (legal personal imports of blank music recording media from foreign suppliers). In response to arguments that higher levy rate might encourage smuggling and the prosperity of a black market (though without concrete evidence) and in fear of destabilizing the blank media market, “the best the Board can do is to proceed with caution. Keeping the rates at their current levels should avoid these pitfalls.” It’s a cry for help for intervention from a higher force!

Update: Retailers, device manufacturers and CPCC are all challenging the Copyright Board’s decision. There is no way out of this one!

Continuer la lecture →

Well well… Catching up on the news I realize I missed something quite significant: the new levy on blank recording media (mp3 players are included) and the decision by the copyright board that downloading from P2P networks is allowable under the Canadian copyright act. Frank has all the links.

C’est demain que sera entendu le pourvoi de la SOCAN sur le Tarif 22 (version 2003).

La cause a été entendue en Cour fédérale, puis par la division d’appel de ce tribunal. Les procédures judiciaires font suite à la décision administrative de la Commission du droit d’auteur d’accepter le tarif 22 proposé par la SOCAN. Pierre-Emmanuel, qui était chez Robic à l’époque, avait fait part de ses impressions sur cette décision.

La décision a fait beaucoup jaser, notamment a cause de son impact sur les webcasters; Lexinformatica a un petit dossier sur la question aussi et Slashdot en a parlé.

Continuer la lecture →

Lessig in Wired: Fiber to the People

For a long time now, the FCC has been pushing the idea that ownership matters. In the past four years, it has relaxed common-carrier-like regulations on cable and telecom providers on the theory that otherwise these companies won’t have enough incentives to deploy broadband networks. Common-carrier regulations, this view fears, would transform IP traffic into a commodity. And capital markets aren’t eager to fund commodity infrastructures.

That might be right about cable and telecom companies. Freeing AOL and Comcast from some regulation might be the only way they could afford to deploy high-speed access. But it doesn’t follow that AOL and Comcast are the most efficient providers of high-speed network access. They might not want to be in a commodity business, but commodities are precisely the efficiencies that drive economies. And as more firms persuade more municipalities to develop competing high-speed networks, then we might learn again why GM doesn’t own the highways, and why neither cable nor telecom companies should own IP access.

I have this irrational attraction for a model where connectivity is a public utility. It bugs me: I don’t think I’m able to see both sides of the debate equally well. What are the weaker points of this commodity model?

[via Lessig’s news blog ]

Slashdot reports that someone was criminally charged for wardriving.

The slashdot article mentions § 342.1 Unauthorized use of computer, of the Criminal Code. I think § 326 Theft of telecommunication service, is what will be used here. Although the wording of 342.1 is general enough to apply to any telecommunication system offered through a computer system, like the WiFi router in this case.

It feels weird to see something like casual wardriving be criminalized (yes, there was nothing causal about the reason of the wardriving in this case, but § 326 does not take that into account). I agree with this in principle, but it is still something I’ve been known to do myself from time to time…

The fact that this is a theft of service prevents the owner of the open access point from being charged as an accomplice to the other charges against the wardriver though. This might or might not be a good thing depending on your point of view on computer security and personal and social liability.

I knew about WIPO’s Collection of Laws for Electronic Access (CLEA), which is « a unique international electronic archive of intellectual property legislation« .

I just stumbled upon UNESCO’s equivalent: a collection of national copyright legislation translated in English. Not fully functional right now though…