By John Klein (aka Saskboy) Today’s Supreme Court of Canada ruling on copyright and fair dealing contains some not-so-small victories. In fact, there is so much common sense in it that I can’t help but feel the justices have taken leave of their old-people senses! Copyright expert Michael Geist has this summary: “[…] The clear […]
The Province’s big, gooey Enbridge mess
By Frank Moher Now that we know just how much financial trouble Postmedia is in (see here, and here, and here), the question becomes: How well are they going to balance journalistic and money problems as they attempt, pell-mell, to transition to a digital-first strategy? On the basis of the Vancouver Province/Enbridge-parody furor, the answer […]
Cartoonist: Enbridge parody pulled on orders from Postmedia
By Frank Moher The cartoonist whose animated parody of an Enbridge ad was removed from the website of Vancouver’s The Province on Friday says the newspaper was told to take it down by a Postmedia executive, after Enbridge threatened to pull $1 million in ads from the company. “It was up for awhile,” Dan Murphy, […]
Vancouver’s Province pulls animation satirizing Enbridge
Update: Cartoonist: Enbridge parody pulled on orders from Postmedia executive The Vancouver Province has pulled from its website an animation created by its editorial cartoonist, Dan Murphy, that satirizes Enbridge’s massive ad campaign in support of its Northern Gateway pipeline. In the original ad, Enbridge claims that the pipeline is “a path to our future,” […]
Think you bought that DVD? Think again.
By John Klein (aka Saskboy) Imagine buying a house, and being locked out of the basement by the previous owner. That’s what digital locks do. If you’ve been following Canadian politics, particularly the new Copyright Act (Canada’s DMCA) Bill C-11, you’ve heard of “digital locks.” A digital lock, or Digital Rights/Restrictions Management (DRM), is a […]
Copyright bill gives big media control
By Eric Pettifor A new copyright bill has been introduced into parliament today, Bill C-32. I nearly wrote “anti-copyright” bill because, while I like the original idea of copyright, most of what governments have done to it in recent decades has been to its detriment. The idea behind copyright was that all creative works belong […]
Don’t Copy That Flop
By Eric Pettifor Q: How difficult would it be for the copyright holder of a film to get the IP addresses of people sharing that film over bittorrent? A: Easy as pie. Here’s a portion of a screen capture from my bittorrent client, ktorrent, showing the ip addresses of people sharing a popular file […]
First strike
isoHunt, a Canadian bittorrent site akin to The Pirate Bay, is making a preemptive strike against the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA), our own little Canadian version of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). From TorrentFreak: As an act of self-defense, isoHunt has decided to sue the CRIA instead, and today Fung will file […]
Paying the piper
I hope Jammie Thomas is made to pay the entire fine of US$222,000 for illegally file-sharing music she never purchased. Just this week an American court ordered Thomas, who lives in Minnesota, to pay $9,250 for each song she stole. You might think this particular crime is not about politics. You might think it is […]
The Fraud of “Intellectual Property”
There is no such thing as “intellectual property.” Take copyright: if we are to look at creative works as property, then it is the property of the commons (that is, public domain), and copyright is simply a limited duration monopoly on works extended to creators as an incentive and reward. Patents likewise are of limited […]
